Effects of boundary conditions on buckling and postbuckling responses of composite laminate with various shaped cutouts

The objective of the present work is to study the effects of flexural boundary conditions on buckling and postbuckling behavior of axially compressed quasi-isotropic laminate, (+45/−45/0/90)_2s with various shaped cutouts (i.e., circular, square, diamond, elliptical–vertical and elliptical–horizontal) of various sizes using the finite element method. The FEM formulation is based on first order shear deformation theory and von Karman’s assumptions are used to incorporate geometric nonlinearity. The 3-D Tsai-Hill criterion is used to predict the failure of a lamina while the onset of delamination is predicted by the interlaminar failure criterion. It is observed that the laminates clamped and simply supported on all edges have the highest and lowest buckling and postbuckling strength, respectively, irrespective of cutouts shape and size. It is also noted that a fully clamped laminate with large size elliptical–vertical cutout can take higher compressive buckling load than the laminate without cutout for same boundary condition.