Some observations on the large deflection bending of rectangular antisymmetric cross-ply plates

Abstract

Large deflection bending analysis of antisymmetric rectangular cross-ply plates based on Von-Karman plate theory is investigated in this paper, with one-term approximation for the in-plane and transverse displacements, under sinusoidal loading. The presence of bending-stretching coupling in such plates results in an additional square nonlinear term which makes the solution (for example, displacements) load direction dependent, unlike isotropic, orthotropic, symmetric, square antisymmetric cross-ply and symmetric and antisymmetric angle-ply plates. The effect of this term on large deflection response, based on the Rayleigh-Ritz method is presented for various configurations and modular ratios of such plates. It is shown that the presence of this square term could alter the very nature of nonlinearity i.e. hardening or softening for certain values of the load parameter.