First Ply Failure of Laminated Composite Plates - A Mixed Finite Element Approach

Abstract

First-ply failure (FPF) analyses of composite laminated plates have been presented in this paper. A 3-D layer-wise mixed finite element model developed by the authors (Ramtekkar, G.S., Desai, Y.M. and Shah, A.H. (2002). Mixed Finite Element Model for Thick Composite Laminated Plates, Mechanics of Advanced Materials and Structures, 9(2): 133-156.) has been employed for the computation of components of stress and strain. FPF has been predicted by using the maximum stress, the maximum strain, Tsai-Hill, Tsai-Wu and Hoffman failure theories. It has been observed that the 3-D failure theories have yielded approximately the same failure load as their 2-D counterparts because the failure of a lamina (ply) under flexure is primarily associated with the in-plane stress state. It has been demonstrated that the present methodology predicts the FPF load for cross-ply laminated plates very well. Results have been presented for cross-ply-angle-ply, symmetric-anti-symmetric and thin-thick plates to show important observations.

Keywords

composite laminated plates first-ply failure mixed finite element

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

1. Ramtekkar, G.S. , Desai, Y.M. and Shah, A.H. (2002). Mixed Finite Element Model for Thick Composite Laminated Plates, Mechanics of Advanced Materials and Structures, 9(2): 133-156.

2. Tsai, S.W. (1965). Strength Characteristics of Composite Materials, NASA CR-224.

3. Soni, S.R. (1983). A New Look at Commonly Used Failure Theories in Composite Laminates, 24th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials Conference Proc.

4. Turvey, G.J. (1980). An Initial Flexural Failure Analysis of Symmetrically Laminated Cross-ply Rectangular Plates, Journal of Solids and Structures, 16: 451-463.

5. Turvey, G.J. (1980). Flexural Failure Analysis of Angle-ply Laminates of GFRP and CFRP, Journal of Strain Analysis, 15(1): 43-49.

6. Turvey, G.J. (1980). A Study of the Onset of Flexural Failure in Cross-ply Laminated Strips, Fibre Science and Technology, 13: 325-336.

7. Turvey, G.J. (1981). Initial Flexural Failure of Square, Simply Supported, Angle-ply Plates, Fibre Science and Technology, 15: 47-63.

8. Turvey, G.J. (1982). Uniformly Loaded, Antisymmetric Cross-ply Laminated, Rectangular Plates: An Initial Flexural Failure Analysis, Fibre Science and Technology, 16: 1-10.

9. Reddy, J.N. and Pandey, A.K. (1987). A First Ply Failure Analysis of Composite Laminates, Computers and Structures, 25(3): 371-393.

10.

10. Ray, C. and Satsangi, S.K. (1999). Laminated Stiffened Plate-A First Ply Failure Analysis, Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites, 18(12): 1061-1076.

11.

11. Goswami, S. (1999). Failure Analysis of Polymer Composite Stiffened Laminates Using the Finite Element Method, Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites, 18(1): 2-14.

12.

12. Prusty, B.G. , Satsangi, S.K. and Ray, C. (2001). First Ply Failure Analysis of Laminated Panels Under Transverse Loading, Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites, 20(08): 671-684.

13.

13. Karmakar, A. and Sinha, P.K. (2001). Failure Analysis of Laminated Composite Pretwisted Rotating Plates, Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites, 20(15): 1326-1357.

14.

14. Sih, G.C. and Skudra, A.M. (eds) (1985). Handbook of Composites-Volume 3; Failure Mechanics of Composites, Chapter II, pp. 71-125, Elsevier Science Publishers B. V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands.