Nonlinear first ply failure study of laminated composite skew plates

Abstract

The present work reports the first ply failure investigation of laminated composite clamped skew plates subjected to uniformly distributed transverse static load considering geometric linear and nonlinear strains. An eight-noded isoparametric curved quadratic plate element based on Sanders’ and Von Karman's nonlinearity is employed to develop the finite element code used in the present research. The first ply failure loads are evaluated based on various well-acknowledged failure theories like maximum stress, maximum strain, Hoffman, Tsai – Hill, Tsai – Wu, Hashin and Puck failure criteria. Effect of variation of skew angles on first ply failure loads of laminated composite skew plates for various stacking pattern is reported and studied in depth. The failure criterion corresponding to which the failure load value is minimum, for each skew angle, is only reported in this paper. The effects of skew angle on the first ply failure load are summarised in the form of charts and working equations. The engineers and researchers may use the charts and equations directly to predict the first ply failure load provided the geometry of the plate is known. Besides first ply failure loads the failed plies as well as the failure modes are also reported in the present paper.