Postbuckling of composite laminated plates under biaxial compression combined with lateral pressure and resting on elastic foundations

A postbuckling analysis is presented for a. simply supported, composite laminated rectangular plate subjected to biaxial compression combined with lateral pressure and resting on a two-parameter (Pasternak-type) elastic foundation. The initial geometrical imperfection of the plate is taken into account. The formulations are based on the classical laminated plate theory, including plate-foundation interaction. The analysis uses a perturbation technique to determine the buckling loads and postbuckling equilibrium paths. Numerical examples are presented that relate to the performances of antisymmetric angle-ply and symmetric cross-ply laminated plates subjected to combined loading and resting on Pasternak-type elastic foundations from which results for Winkler elastic foundations are obtained as a limiting case. The influence played by a number of effects, among them foundation stiffness, the plate aspect ratio, the total number of plies, fibre orientation and initial lateral pressure, is studied. Typical results are presented in dimensionless graphical form.