Investigation of Stress Analysis and Shear Correction Factors In A Thermoplastic Composite Cantilever Beam Under In-plane Loading

Abstract

In the present study, an analysis of stresses and shear correction factors are carried out for a homogeneous polyethylene thermoplastic cantilever beam which is reinforced by steel fibers and whose cross section is rectangular. The beam exhibits in-plane shear deformation by an applied shear force and there exists the effect of extension-shear coupling which does not exist in out-of-plane shear deformation. The shear correction factor is defined taking into account the coupling effect. The distributions of normal stress, shear stress, and shear strain across the cross section of the rectangular solid beam are obtained analytically. In order to verify the analytical solution results were compared with the finite element method. A rectangular element with nine nodes has been choosen. A composite plate is meshed into 48 elements and 228 nodes with simply supported and in-plane loading conditions. Predictions of the stress distributions of the beam using finite elements were overall in good agreement with analytical values. The variation of shear correction factors for the composite beam is also investigated with the change of ply angles.