An approximate method is developed to investigate the interlaminar stresses near the free edges of beam-type composite laminate structures subjected to out-of-plane shear/bending. The method is based upon admissible function representations for in-plane stresses that contain a linear variation in the longitudinal direction. Closed-form solutions of all stress components are sought by minimizing the complementary energy with respect to the unknown functions. The resulting solutions satisfy the stress equilibrium, compatibility, and all of the boundary conditions. Numerical examples are given for both cross-ply and angle-ply laminates. It is found that interlaminar stresses under the shear/bending, particularly those for angle-ply laminates, may exhibit substan-tially different characteristics than under uniaxial loading or under pure bending. Nomenclature b = half-laminate width /i, /2 = unknown functions for the ply stresses cr22 and o\\2 g(k) = unknown function for the ply stress an in the fcth ply h = laminate thickness h{k \\ h2k} = unknown functions for the strain en in the &th ply L = laminate length AW 1,2,3 = eigenvalue solutions to the characteristic equation (64) n = total number of plies P(XI)- arbitrary loading distributed in the longitudinal direction x \\ (force/unit area) Sjj = ply compliances /(Ar) = thickness of the fcth ply V- applied out-of-plane shear per unit width or laminate volume (force/unit width) X [ = longitudinal coordinate x2 = transverse coordinate x2 = normalized transverse coordinate AT3 = out-of-plane coordinate with origin at the bottom of each ply ci i » €22 * €33 = normal strains 723, To, 712 = shear strains ^23, v\\3, ^12 = poisson ratios Hc = complementary energy HC = complementary energy defined by Eq. (58) a/y = far-field stresses at = companion stresses £ = longitudinal location of shear load