Elastic Instability of Composite Material Laminates under Uniform Temperature Variation

In this paper the behaviour of a simply supported rectangular composite plate with anti-symmetric lamination under the action of an in-plane unidirectional load and subjected to a uniformtemperaturevariation is studied. When the in-plane displacements are constrained on the boundary, the existence of two characteristic curves has been established. Such curves are independent on the panel dimensions and allow the diagrams of the critical buckling load for laminates at different temperatures to be derived. As an example those curves are plotted for some typical carbon fiber reinforced plastic laminates. Finally the phenomenon of the thermal buckling is considered.