Transverse Thermal Expansion Coefficients for Composite Laminates

A simplified derivation has been performed for the transverse thermal expansion coeffi cient for a symmetric composite laminate. In numerically evaluating the resulting expres sion, it was noticed that the dominant term for the transverse expansion of each lamina was invariant with respect to the lamina orientation. Subsequent manipulation of the analytical expression has proven this. This result limits the flexibility for designing laminates with unusual transverse expansion properties. Simple bounds on the transverse expansion coefficient are suggested.