Analysis of Composite Plate u sing Variable Stiffness Element (VSE)

Submitted by Md. Sayem Uddin Student ID: z3315575

Supervisor Prof. Evgeny Morozov Co-supervisor Dr. Krishnakumar Shankar

University of New South Wales @ Australian Defence Force Academy

February 2012

1.

Variation of stiffness in composite laminates

One important feature of composite materials is that stiffness can be tailored according to the requirements for particular application. Composite materials offer a range of properties which are impossible to match with traditional materials. Moreover, they allow the design and engineering of materials precisely, tailored to meet the demands of the particular application. Stiffness variation in laminates is possible due to Laminate composition Variation of fibre volume fraction Variation of laminate thickness Changing fibre orientations In this research project, only stiffness variation due to varying fibre paths will be considered. And the laminate having this type of fibre path is called variable stiffness composite laminate.

Through manufacturing the fibre paths: during manufacturing of some structures, fibres are steered and hence variable stiffness is attained due to the changing of fibre paths. By Design: Some structures need to be designed with varying fibre paths. For example, a plate with hole. To handle stress concentration, fibres should be steered along the load path trajectories and we should also ensure that no fibres are cut around the hole. Steering of fibres in a composite laminate along the load path in the structure offers improvement in stiffness and strength. So it is of high importance to find out the response of composite laminates with varying fibre paths. 2. Techniques of finite element analysis (FEA)

To get a laminated composite plate with variable in-plane stiffness, varying fibre path should be defined first using fibre orientation angles at different points over the plate. There are several ways to vary the fibre orientation angle. Variation of fibre orientation angles for changing fibre paths can be done in different ways. For example, Linear variation Circular arc variation Variation based on higher order functions

I have considered at first linear variation of fibre orientation angles along x axis to get symmetric fibre orientation w.r.t y axis.

Deliverables 2.1 Technique of variable stiffness element

19 February 2012

To achieve the defined objectives, my approach and methodology will be like this. At first I have considered linear variation of fibre orientation angles in stead of considering constant angles within each element as shown by this blue line. For this type of variation, the fibre path will be like as shown by green line. Other types of approximation functions will be also considered for the variation of fibre angle within an element such as lobatto-legendre polynomials. Next, stiffness variation will be considered within an element. For example, for a simple rectangular isoparametric element, I have calculated fibre angle and also stiffness at four gauss points.
4 3

2b
(0,0)

1
A

2a

Figure 2.1 A four nodal isoparametric plate element 2.2 Technique of conventional FEA For finite element modelling of variable stiffness laminate composite plate, constant fibre orientation angle within each element is used in current FE packages. If I consider a plate with 4 by 4 mesh, for the approximation of fibre path shown by green line, existing FE packages discretize the path considering constant angle within an element. So the fibre orientation variation is discrete between two elements. This is shown by this figure (side figure). So what is the effect of this type of approximation on stiffness variation ? Stiffness variation also discontinuous between two corresponding elements.

Deliverables 3. Convergence of VSE 3.1 From published paper

19 February 2012

After writing the code, VSE has been used to predict the central deflection of a thin square crossply (0/90)s composite plate under uniformly distributed load. Then the results of central deflection has been compared with the exact solution[1-2]. The exact central displacement is given in a form of a double Fourier series: ( ) ( ) (1) ( )( ) ( ) ( )

Here l = Length of the square plate Where D is the bending stiffness of the laminate. This is a rapidly convergent series, and using m = n = 13 the central displacement found is w = 1.0956 10e-3 m. Table 3.1 : Material properties and dimension of cross-ply composite plate
a/h =100 a = 400 mm; h = 4 mm E1 = 140.5 GPa E2 = 10 GPa G12 = 5 GPa G13 = G23 = 3.5 GPa Poissons Ratio = 0.3 Orientation: 0/90/90/0 w = 1.0956 [ Fourier series] m Ansys result of w: w = 1.0976 VSE generated values of w: w = 1.08413 w = 1.09536 w = 1.098212 m (6 )

m (12 12) m (20 20)

m (ANSYS)

3.2 Verification manual of ANSYS For geometric properties given in VM82.dat of verification manual in ANSYS [3], central deflection of square simply supported orthotropic plate[4] has been calculated using VSE and convergence has been checked.

Deliverables

19 February 2012

Figure 3.1 Simply supported laminated plate problem sketch

Table 3.2: Properties of laminated composite plate (VM82.dat)

Table: Properties of laminated composite plate

Figure 3.2 Convergence of central deflection of orthotropic plate

Deliverables 4.

19 February 2012

Analysis of laminate with linearly varying fibre orientation angle (Gurdal) 4.1 Geometry

A symmetric balanced laminate with linearly varying fibre orientation has been analysed using both VSE and Ansys for two different cases (case I & case II - figure 4.1). The same problem has also been solved analytically by Gurdal and Olmedo[5] and Senocak and Tanriover[6]. For case I, transverse edge is traction free. For case II, the panel has fixed transverse edge. The laminate has four graphite-epoxy layers.

y Nxy = 0
Case I

v = Nxy = 0 Case II

Symmetry

= (x)
Nxy = 0

Symmetry

u=u0

u=u0

= (x)
Nxy = 0

x Symmetry Symmetry

Figure 4.1 Boundary conditions for quarter plate[5]

4.2 Material properties A linear variation of the fibre orientation along x-axis is obtained by the following relation: ( ( ) { ( ) ) (2)

Where

To = Angle of fibre at the middle point of plate T1 = Angle of fibre at the end of plate

The angles To and T1 have been chosen to range between 00 and 450. Because of the twofold symmetry, only one quarter of the panel has been modelled. In all cases, a uniform end shortening, uo has been applied at x = a/2.

Deliverables 4.3 Boundary condition 4.4 Analysis 4.5 Results

19 February 2012

For case I, the calculated axial stress resultants (Nx) from Ansys and VSE are plotted in the following figures and compared with the analytical solution by Gurdal and Olmedo[5] and Senocak and Tanriover[6]. Axial stress resultants calculated using Ansys and VSE differ from analytical solution by Gurdal and Olmedo (Figure 4.2). Minimum value of axial stress resultant from Analytical results is 33% percent higher than that from Ansys and VSE. Maximum value of Nx is also about 66% higher. On the other hand, values of Nx from Ansys and VSE are compared with results from Senocak and Tanriover (Figure 4.3), results do not vary more than 16%.

Figure 4.2 Axial stress resultant as function of x and y

Deliverables

19 February 2012

1.4

y0
1.2

y 3 / 8b y 0.5b

N x a 1.0 0 u 0 A11
0.8

0.6
0.0 0.1 0.2

x 0.3 a

0.4

0.5

Figure 4.3 Axial stress resultant as a function of x/a[6]

Ansys and VSE predicted transverse stress resultants also vary from analytical solution by Gurdal and Olmedo (Figure 4.4). However, the difference between Ansys and VSE predicted results and results by Senocak and Tanriover (Figure 4.5) is negligible.

Figure 4.4 Transverse stress resultant along x/a

Deliverables

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0.2

y0 y 0.5b

0.1

N ya
0 u0 A11

0.0

-0.1 0.0

0.1

0.2 x

0.3

0.4

0.5

a
Figure 4.5 Transverse stress resultant along x/a[6] Figure 4.6 shows the axial stress resultant at x = a/2 for case I with T0 = 450. The difference between Ansys and VSE predicted results and analytical solution by Gurdal and Olmedo is quite obvious.

Figure 4.6 Axial stress resultant at x = a/2

Deliverables 4.6 Influence of mesh size in analysis of variable stiffness laminate

19 February 2012

For case I, the axial stress resultants and transverse stress resultants have been calculated using increased mesh size for two different positions of y (at y = 0 and y = b/2). But the increased mesh size does not much effect of stress resultant values. From the following two figures (figures 5 and ) it is clear that the results do not vary much for larger number of elements.

Figure 4.7 Axial stress resultant for different number of elements at y = 0

Deliverables

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Figure 4.8 Axial stress resultant for different number of elements at y =b/2 4.7 Results for large angle variation: The same problem as from Gurdal and Olmedo [5] has been solved for different angle variation for case I. Angle at the centre of plate is 00 and at the edge, 900. For this case, the results from VSE and Ansys do not vary much. This implies that VSE still is not reflecting the proper angle variation of the varying fibre trajectories. So instead of considering only four points, we have to change number of nodes to check the effect and to represent the varying fibre path more accurately. The following figures (Figures 4.9 and 4.10) show the results for large angle variation.

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Figure 4.9 Axial stress along x axis

Figure 4.10 Axial stress Resultant as a function of x and y

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Deliverables 5.

19 February 2012

Analysis of composite plate with constant fibre orientation angle (coarse mesh) 5.1 Geometry

u = 0 at x = 0
T

v = w = RotX= RotY= 0 at x = 0 & y = b/2

Figure 5.1 Laminated composite plate 5.2 Material properties Material - graphite-epoxy E1 = 180.99e9 Pa NU = 0.28 G12 = 7.17e9 Pa G13 = 7.17e9 Pa Length, a = 0.5 m Width, b = 0.25 m Constant Fibre Orientation: [-60/+60/+60/-60] Number of plies = 4 (symmetric balanced laminate) Thickness of each ply = 1.27e-3 m Tension applied at the edge, T : 500 N Mesh size: Element used: Shell181 G23 = 3.00e9 Pa E2 = 10.30e9 Pa

5.3 Boundary condition Boundary conditions: At At , ,

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Deliverables 5.4 Analysis 5.5 Results 5.5.1 Displacement

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Figure 5.2 u displacement for different positions

Figure 5.3 v displacement for different positions

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Deliverables 5.5.2 Distribution of stresses (a/2, b/2) through thickness

19 February 2012

Figure 5.4 Through-thickness distribution of axial stress,

Figure 5.5 Through-thickness distribution of transverse stress,

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Figure 5.6 Through-thickness distribution of in-plane shear stress, 5.5.3 Distribution of strains (a/2, b/2) through thickness

Figure 5.7 Through-thickness distribution of in-plane axial strain,

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Figure 5.8 Through-thickness distribution of in-plane transverse strain, 5.5.4 Distribution of stress resultants

Figure 5.9 Axial stress resultant as a function of x and y

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Figure 5.10 Axial stress resultant at x = a

Figure 5.11 Transverse stress resultant as a function of x and y

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Figure 5.12 Shear stress resultant as a function of x and y 5.5.5 Stress distribution across mid-length and end of plate

Figure 5.13 Distribution of in-plane axial stress (

) as function of x and y

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Figure 5.14 Distribution of in-plane transverse stress (

) as function of x and y

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Deliverables 6.

19 February 2012

Analysis of composite plate with variable fibre orientation angle (refined mesh) 6.1 Geometry 6.2 Material properties 6.3 Boundary condition 6.4 Analysis 6.5 Results

7.

Influence of mesh size in analysis of variable stiffness laminate 7.1 Influence on displacements 7.2 Influence on stresses 7.3 Influence on stress resultants

8.

Analysis of composite plate with variable fibre orientation angle (nonlinear variation)

9.

Conclusion

10. References
1. Argyris, J. and L. Tenek, A natural triangular layered element for bending analysis of isotropic, sandwich,laminated composite and hyhrid plates. Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering 1993. 109: p. 197-218. Berthelot, J.-M., Composite Materials - Mechanical Behavior and Structural Analysis, ed. F.F. Ling and W.H. Hart. 1999: Springer. ANSYS academic research. 2009. 12.0.1. Reddy, J.N. and M. ASCE, EXACT SOLUTIONS OF MODERATELY THICK LAMINATED SHELLS. Journal of Engineering Mechanics, 1984. 110(5): p. 794-809. Gurdal, Z. and R. Olmedo, In-plane response of laminates with spatially varying fiber orientations: variable stiffness concept. AIAA Journal, 1993. 31(4): p. 751-758. Senocak, E. and H. Tanriover, Analysis of composite plates with variable stiffness using Galerkin Method. THE AERONAUTICAL JOURNAL, 2007. 111(1118): p. 247-255.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

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