Influence of fiber misalignment on the thermal buckling of variable angle tows laminated plates

Variable Angle Tows (VAT) are a class of composite materials with curved fiber paths within the lamina plane. The tailoring of VATs is a virtue that increased the interest in their study. On the other hand, the same freedom in the fiber deposition inevitably leads to manufacturing defects like misalignment that impact the structure behavior, particularly buckling. The present study investigates the influence of manufacturing fiber misalignment on the thermal buckling response of a VAT composite square plate. The governing equations are obtained within the Carrera Unified Formulation (CUF) framework combined with Finite Element Method. The thermal problem is schematized with a decoupled approach, and the critical loads are evaluated through the solution of an eigenvalue problem. The results show how the presence of random misalignment influences both the buckling critical temperature and the buckling mode.