Stress analysis for thin laminated plates with consideration of transverse shear stress

In this paper, a FEM analysis is developed on the basis of Ambartsumyan's plate theory. This method is simple and useful for calculating interlaminar shear stress in thin laminated plates, because Ambartsumyan's theory can consider the effect of transverse shear stress and deformation. The displacement functions in this FEM are defined to satisfy these conditions and the Lagrange multiplier method can satisfy the continuity of interlaminar shear stress. However this theory assume that the plate thickness is thin, so the application limit of the plate thickness is proposed. Also the validity of numerical results with this method is discussed in comparison with previous results.