Thermal buckling and dynamic characteristics of composite plates under pressure load

The effect of geometrical nonlinearities due to pressure load on the thermal buckling and dynamic characteristics of composite plates are investigated in this paper, which is the main contribution of this research work. The mechanical behavior of the plate is described with the first-order shear deformation theory. The geometrical nonlinearity due to both thermal effect and pressure load is introduced in the finite element model of the plate via additional stiffness matrices. Thermal buckling and modal analysis of a four-sided simply supported rectangular composite plate under different pressure fields are conducted. Numerical results show that both the mode frequencies and critical buckling temperature of the plate rise with the increase of the pressure. The vibrational mode shapes change with the gradient pressure load field. The maximum buckled deflection point moves from the center to the place where is easier to reach compressive stress state under uniform thermal load. The pressure distribution has a significant effect on the buckling mode shapes of the plate.