Composite structures are broadly classified into three categories: particulate composite structures, which consist of particles of various shapes and sizes dispersed randomly and embedded within a matrix, a homogeneous material; continuous fibre composite structures, which consist of a matrix, embedded and reinforced with long and continuous fibres; and short fibre composites, which contain short discontinuous fibres embedded within a matrix.The composite laminates generally consist of thin layers, or laminae, that are orthotropic, transverse isotropic or isotropic in behaviour. An arbitrary number of layers of laminae are assumed to be stacked together with arbitrary ply-orientation angles. However, in most composite laminates identical layers or plies are ordered in a particular and regular stacking sequence, which refers to the location and sequence of various plies. The configuration indicating its ply make-up is referred to as its lay-up. A symmetric laminate is a laminate in which, for every layer on one side of the laminate reference surface with a specific thickness, specific material properties and specific fibre orientation, there is another layer at the same distance on the opposite side of the reference surface with the same specific thickness, material properties and fibre orientation.In classical fibre composites, fibres such as boron, borsic, graphite, Kevlar and fibre-galls are used while the matrix materials are metals such as aluminium, titanium and magnesium. A variety of resin materials are used for bonding the fibres in the matrix or bonding the layers. These include epoxy, bismaleimide, polyimide, polyester, phenolic and a number of thermo-plastics. Piezo-patch-actuated composite laminates and shape memory alloy (SMA)-actuated composite structures include additional layers of piezo-ceramics or SMA wires embedded within layers of resin. These layers are usually bonded on either side of classical fibre composite to provide the structure with effective active control mechanism. Bonding the layers on either side of the composite and applying an unsymmetrical potential difference on both sides provides maximum control forces and moments.The piezoelectrically and thermally induced stresses developed in symmetric electro-actuated laminates are most often unsymmetric. Thus, the control-configured laminates are generally analysed as laminates that are not symmetric and will cause curvature under the presence of a control loading. The piezoelectric laminates of interest for active control applications are thin unsymmetric laminates.There are a number of books covering the various aspects of classical laminates such as DanielWhile exact solutions exist only for certain rectangular bidirectional composites and sandwich plates (Pagano, 1970), in most practical situations a number of simplifying assumptions must be made in the analysis of laminated plates. Classical lamination theory (CLT) is a plate theory for laminated composite materials, in which properties are smeared through the thickness and define...