Development of a unified design buckling curve for fibre reinforced polymer plates subjected to in-plane uniaxial and uniform compression

Presented are 24 non-dimensional buckling curves to estimate the strengths of Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) square plates having four simply supported edges and subjected in-plane uniaxial uniform compression. The constructed by authors from a parametric numerical analysis using ABAQUS® software with changing variables for: material properties; initial geometrical imperfections; laminate lay-ups; plate thicknesses. These strength express relationships for reduction factor slenderness, account post-buckling strength. We observe that regardless lay-up (except purely unidirectional), choice FRP magnitude imperfection predicted factors display meaningful correlation slenderness. is proposed unified design curve, defined as lower bound 18 ABAQUS®-generated curves. This new curve benchmarked against experimental test results extracted literature it found there reasonable agreement. recommend has potential be introduced into structural standards procedure plates.