Tapered laminated structures have received significant attention from researchers for creatingconsiderable weight savings in engineering applications. Due to the variety of tapered compositeplates and the complexity of the analysis, no closed form analytical solution is available based onthird-order theory regarding their response to compressive loading. Therefore in the presentwork, the Ritz method is used for the global buckling analysis considering uniaxial compressiveload. The buckling loads obtained using Ritz method are also compared with the existinganalytical results. The strength characteristics and load carrying ability of the tapered plates areinvestigated considering two types of (local) failure: first-ply failure and delamination failure.Based on the above mentioned analyses, the critical sizes and parameters of the tapered platesthat will not fail before global buckling are determined. Finally, a parametric study is carried out.
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