Buckling analysis of a plate with built-in rectangular delamination by strip distributed transfer function method.

Delamination may reduce the buckling of the laminated plate. In this paper, a semi-analytical, semi-exact method, namely the strip transfer function method based on Mindlin’s first-order shear deformation theory is developed to investigate the buckling of a delaminated plate. First, a composite plate with bulit-in rectangular delamination is divided into two kinds of rectangular super-units, one with a delamination and one without. The variational principle is used to obtain equilibrium equations and boundary conditions. Then, by displacement continuity and force balance of nodes that connect two super-units, the characteristic equation for the buckling analysis of the delaminated plate is derived. Consequently, buckling load and mode are computed. By comparing the results of the plate with through-the-width delamination to the analytic solutions of a beam and the results of the finite element method, the validity of this method is tested. Furthermore, the influence of length, depth and position of the delamination, the boundary condition and the plying angle of the material on the buckling load is analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]