Delamination growth and buckling in an orthotropic strip

This study presents an analytical solution to the problem of delamination growth and buckling in a layered plate. Delamination growth and buckling is a commonly obeserved failure mode in laminated structures; this type of failure mode may cause structural degradation or stiffness reduction and leads ultimately to premature failure at stresses well below the design levels for an undamaged laminate. Under compression loading the nature of the delamination response which involves the interaction of delamination growth and buckling is addressed by employing the three-dimensional equations of elastic stability. Solutions to the problem of an orthotropic plate with a through-width delamination subjected to uniaxial compression is obtained by using mathematical techniques appropriate for mixed boundary value problems.