On the strain energy of laminated composite plates (Q1204994)

A strain energy function is obtained for nonhomogeneous, laminated, composite plates for the case when each lamina exhibits monoclinic material symmetry about its middle surface. The starting point is the three-dimensional strain energy based on geometrically nonlinear elasticity theory. The variational-asymptotical method is used to decompose the nonlinear three-dimensional problem into two separate problems: (1) a linear, through-the-thickness, one-dimensional analysis to obtain appropriate plate elastic constants and relations between plate deformation variables and three-dimensional results; and (2) a nonlinear, two-dimensional analysis to analyse the plate deformation.