Analytical solutions for flexure of clamped rectangular cross-ply plates using an accurate zig-zag type higher-order theory

Clamped cross-ply plates are analyzed here using a higher-order theory based on a realistic thickness-wise displacement field that accounts for a zig-zag variation of the in-plane displacements. Rigorous analytical solutions are obtained for this difficult problem using a methodology developed recently wherein simple Fourier series solutions of a corresponding simply-supported plate are superposed, each such component solution being summed without truncation using MATHEMATICA. Numerical results, for square homogeneous and three-layer plates under uniform and central point loads, are compared with those based on the classical and first-order theories. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.