Based upon our recent development of Stroh-like forma lism for symmetric/unsymmetric laminates, most of the relations for bending problems can be organized into the forms of Stroh formalism for two-dimensional problems. Through the use of Stroh-like formalism, the fundamental elasticity matrices Ni, S, H and L appear frequently in the real form solutions of plate bending problems. Therefore, the determination of these matrices becomes important in the analysis of plate bending problems. In this paper, by following the approach for two-dimensional problems, we obtain the explicit expressions of the fundamental elasticity matrices for symmetric and unsymmetric laminates, which are all expressed in terms of the extensional, bending and coupling stiffnesses of the composite laminates.
