evaluation of the best new cross-ply laminated plate theories through the axiomatic/asymptotic approach

This paper presents best theory diagrams (btds) constructed from various non-polynomial theories for the static analysis of thick and thin symmetric and asymmetric cross-ply laminated plates. the btd is a curve that provides the minimum number of unknown variables necessary for a fixed error or vice versa. the plate theories that belong to the btd have been obtained by means of the axiomatic/asymptotic method (aam). the different plate theories reported are implemented by using the carrera unified formulation (cuf). navier-type solutions have been obtained for the case of simply- supported plates loaded by a bisinuisoidal transverse pressure with different lengthto- thickness ratios. the btds built from non-polynomials functions are compared with btds using maclaurin expansion. the results suggest that the plate models obtained from the btd using non-polynomial terms can improve the accuracy obtained from maclaurin expansions for a given number of unknown variables of the displacement field.