Buckling of stiffened antisymmetric laminated plates

The analytical strip method (ASM) is extended in this paper to the buckling analysis of antisymmetric laminated composite plates with bending-extension coupling. A system of three equations of equilibrium governing the buckling response of antisymmetric laminated composite plates is reduced to a single eighth-order partial differential equation, expressed in terms of a displacement function. This equation is then solved analytically to generate the critical value of the in-plane forces (N^x, N^y) for antisymmetric cross-ply and angle-ply laminated and stiffened composite plates. The effects of various parameters, including plate aspect ratio, plate orthotropicity ratio, beam rigidity, and plate bending-extension coupling on the critical values of N^x and N^y on antisymmetric laminated composite plates are discussed. The results derived using the ASM are presented in tabular and graphical forms and compare very well with ones derived using finite-element analysis.