Exact Solutions of Cross-Ply Laminates with Bonding Imperfections

State-space approach is developed to analyze the bending and free vibration of a simply supported, cross-ply laminated rectangular plate featuring interlaminar bonding imperfections, for which a general linear spring layer model is adopted. The analysis is directly based on the three-dimensional theory of orthotropic elasticity and is completely exact. Numerical comparison is made, showing that although the plate theory developed in the literature behaves well for moderately thick perfect laminates it can become inaccurate when bonding imperfections are present. The special problem of the laminate in cylindrical bending is also considered, and the validity of the assumption of cylindrical bending is investigated through numerical examples.