Approximate Analysis of the Buckling Behavior of Composites with Delamination

Abstract

In this paper, we provide an insight into the governing mechanism of the uni-axial compressive bucklingof a delaminated composite. We propose an approximate method to analyze the bucklingbehavior as the first step to further investigate the effect of contact zone at the ends of a delamination. The agreement of the analytical results with experiments in critical values of relative axial displacement verifies our model and approach. The proposed method provides a simple and effective way to calculate the forces, moments and energy required for the processes of local and global buckling. Moreover, the effect of the thickness ratio, T/h, on the total strain energy can be studied in a continuous range of values, while other methods investigate this parametric effect discretely. The effect of delamination length and position in the buckling behavior are also investigated. The analytical results compare favorably with results of similar, but more elaborate, studies.