HIGH-ORDER ELEMENT FOR PREBUCKLING AND BUCKLING ANALYSIS OF LAMINATED PLANE FRAMES

A new high-order element for prebuckling and buckling of any laminated plane frame is developed. The kinematic approach involves a variety of high-order models with different powers of the thickness coordinate, and the derived stiffness matrix is based on a special power series, without a numerical process. It yields an exact formulation for high-order (first) models and improved formulations for higher-order (second and third) ones. A parametric study of the ‘locking’ phenomenon and the shear deformation effects was camed out for isotropic and laminated structures. It was found that the first-order model with an appropriate shear correction factor yielded results close to its higher-order counterparts