Stress concentration around a central hole as affected by material nonlinearity in fibrous composite laminated plates subject to in-plane loadingAbstract: The distribution of stresses in laminated composite plates with a central circular hole and having various stacking sequences, different geometric dimensions and subjected to in-plane axial tensile loading was investigated. The ANSYS computer program was utilized using the finite element method to study the linear and nonlinear material effects. A new method was proposed for the purpose of incorporating the material nonlinearity model into the ANSYS computer program using the secant modulus material model. The aim of the authors is to analyze the effect of D/b and a/b ratios (where D is hole diameter, b is plate width, and a is plate length) on stresses induced in such plates. Analysis was carried out for angle-ply, fourlayered symmetric laminated rectangular plates with various stacking sequences [ ± θ] s .