Thermal buckling of rectangular laminated plates with a hole

Thermal buckling analysis of symmetric and antisymmetric laminated composite plates with clamped and simply supported edges, and containing a hole is presented in this paper. The first-order shear deformation theory in conjunction with the variational energy method is employed in mathematical formulation. The eight-node Lagrangian finite element technique is used to find thermal buckling temperatures of isotropic, glass-epoxy and boron-epoxy laminates. The effects of hole size, angle of ply orientation, lay-up sequences, and boundary conditions on thermal buckling temperatures are investigated. The result is shown in graphical forms for various boundary conditions.