Elastic Analysis of Multi-Layer Plates with Arbitrary Geometry and Boundary Conditions Using Layerwise Mixed Formulation

In this paper, a three-dimensional solution with mixed layerwise formulation is presented for multi-layer composite plates with arbitrary geometry and boundary conditions.  In this study, the displacement field the out-of plane stresses are considered as a sum of a series of functions with unknown coefficients. The boundary conditions and the continuity of the displacement field and the traction stresses between the layers are exactly satisfied. Equilibrium and compatibility equations are also applied using the Reissner's variational principle. The results show that the mixed formulation has faster convergence than displacement based formulation, and provides more accurate values of interlaminar stresses.