LAUSR

The thermal buckling and post-buckling of geometrically perfect and imperfect hybrid laminated composite plates reinforced with shape memory alloys (SMA) subjected to a uniform thermal loading are investigated by a semi-analytical finite strip method. In this method, because of applying trigonometric functions, the energy integrations can be computed analytically. The first-order shear deformation theory in conjunction with von Karman nonlinear strain–displacement formulation is implemented. The solution procedure is based on minimization of the total potential energy and solving the eigenvalue problem or a set of nonlinear equations by using an iterative Newton–Raphson method for linear buckling and post-buckling analysis, respectively. By using 1-D simplified Brinson’s model, the effect of SMA fibers on thermal buckling and post-buckling of composite plates with various boundary conditions is studied.