This paper considers a thin, elastic, bidirectional, symmetric composite laminate subjected to a uniform axial strain. All interlaminar stresses are determined by a 0^th-order perturbation analysis of the governing equations. The method of solution considers the laminate to be composed of an interior region (removed from the free edge) and a boundary layer region. The interior region is analyzed by dropping terms related to powers of the thickness-to-width ratio h/b in the dimensionless elasticity equations. The boundary layer region is studied by introducing a stretching transformation to the governing equations. A uniform solution is then formed by satisfying Prandtl's matching principle of perturbation theory.

Results for a four-layer, bidirectional graphite-epoxy laminate are compared with existing finite difference results. It is shown that the perturbation analysis provides more insight into the stress distribution near the free edge.