AN ASYMPTOTIC STRESS-ANALYSIS OF LAMINATED PLATES

For a laminated plate in which each layer is made of a transversely isotropic material, the exact three-dimensional elasticity theory is shown to be greatly simplified with the use of the assumption that the elastic modulus in the preferred direction is large compared with the shear moduli. The resulting asymptotic theory is shown to be best where the classical plate theories fail most: it gives very accurate results for a single-layer thick plate or a thick plate made of only a few layers.