ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the effect of the various coupling stiffnesses on the bending, buckling, and vibration behavior of laminated plates. As with both the plate bending and buckling problems, plate vibrations include bending-extension coupling when the plate is unsymmetrically laminated. Laminated plates are one of the simplest and most widespread practical applications of composite laminates. The bending-extension coupling effect has nearly vanished if the laminate has eight or ten layers. The buckling load will be determined for plates with various laminations: specially orthotropic, symmetric angle-ply, antisymmetric cross-ply, and antisymmetric angle-ply. The results for the different lamination types will be compared to find the influence of bend-twist coupling and bending-extension coupling. As with plate buckling, plate vibration, or oscillation about a state of static equilibrium, is an eigenvalue problem. The magnitude of the deformations in a particular mode, however, is indeterminate because vibration is an eigenvalue problem.
