Design of a laminated composite variable curvature panel under uniaxial compression

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present the optimal design of a simply supported variable curvature laminated angle-ply composite panel under uniaxial compression. The objective is to maximize the failure load which is defined as the minimum of the buckling load and the first-ply failure load.

Design/methodology/approach

The numerical results presented are obtained using a shear deformable degenerated shell finite element, a brief formulation of which is given. Some verification problems are solved and a convergence study is conducted in order to assess the accuracy of the element. The design procedure is presented and optimization results are given for a simply supported symmetric eight layer angle-ply panel composed of a flat and two cylindrical sections.

Findings

The influences of the stacking sequence and panel thickness on optimization are investigated and the effects of various problem parameters on the optimization procedure are discussed.

Originality/value

The paper shows that the load carrying capacity of thicker panels is considerably reduced when the first-ply failure constraint is taken into account.

Citation

Cagdas, I. and Adali, S. (2012), "Design of a laminated composite variable curvature panel under uniaxial compression", Engineering Computations, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 48-64. https://doi.org/10.1108/02644401211190564