Assessment of plate theories for multilayered angle-ply plates

The accuracy of laminated plate theories for the analysis of angle-ply multilayered plates is investigated. Classical Lamination Theory, First Order and Reddy’s High Order Shear Deformation Theories are considered, together with a new two-dimensional theory recently proposed by the second Author (2D-theory). Deflections and through-the-thickness stress distributions are compared with the exact 3D elasticity solution. Energy errors of stress fields obtained from the various theories through both constitutive and equilibrium equations are also evaluated. It is shown that equilibrium equations are required to obtain sufficiently accurate stress distributions from CLT, FSDT and HSDT, whereas stresses can be obtained directly from constitutive equations for the 2D-theory.