No abstract

Studies are made on the elastic behaviour of laminated rectangular thin plates under uniform distributed transverse load with moderately large deflection. The effects of foundation parameters, the material parameters, edge conditions, and the aspect ratio of the plate are examined. In all the cases considered, the nonlinear load parameter increases with the maximum deflection‐to‐thickness ratio. The influence of in‐plane boundary conditions (movable and immovable edges) on the large deflections is significant. The nonlinear load parameter for any specified maximum deflection increases with the elastic foundation parameters.