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Interlaminar stress distribution of composite

laminated plates with functionally graded fiber
volume fraction
Article in Materials and Design June 2010
Impact Factor: 3.5 DOI: 10.1016/j.matdes.2009.12.027

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Materials and Design 31 (2010) 29042915

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Materials and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

Interlaminar stress distribution of composite laminated plates

with functionally graded ber volume fraction
Yiming Fu a, Pu Zhang a,*, Fan Yang b
a
b

College of Mechanics and Aerospace, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, PR China

Shenzhen Municipal Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd., Shenzhen 518049, PR China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 20 July 2009
Accepted 16 December 2009
Available online 21 December 2009
Keywords:
Composite material
Fiber volume fraction
Interlaminar stress

a b s t r a c t
Various functionally graded design methods have been proposed recently for ber reinforced composite
plates. The laminates with variable ber spacing along the thickness direction are focused on in this
paper. Fiber volume ratio distribution functions are dened separately in each single layer. Classic state
space method as well as differential quadrature state space method are utilized here for different boundary and plied conditions. For the latter method, a sub-layer based scheme, which has both high accuracy
and less numerical capacity, is suggested for functionally graded plates. Numerical examples indicate that
the non-uniform distribution of bers rearranges the stress eld, of which the in-plane stresses are sensitive to the bers distribution, while the transverse stresses are not affected so much. In-plane stresses
near interfaces would decrease if the ber ratio reduces in this region, which provides a method to
resolve the interfacial stress concentration problems.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Nowadays, composite laminates have been widely used in modern industry due to their high strength-to-weight ratio, high stiffness-to-weight ratio as well as good fatigue resistant properties.
Moreover, the designability of this kind of material makes it have
more development potential than the commonly used metals. Conventional ber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite laminates are
commonly manufactured by bonding many homogeneous single
layers which have unied ber orientation and ber volume fraction
(FVF) together. Of this kind of structures, much research has been
done on their mechanical properties like bending, buckling and
vibration or the failure behaviors such as damage, fracture and fatigue. Along with this, various laminate theories have been developed,
for example, the three-dimensional theories, smeared plate theories,
layer-wise models, zigzag models, and global-local models [1,2].
With the occurrence of functionally graded metal-ceramic materials, researchers extend this gradient idea to the design of FRP composites. And during the last two decades, functionally graded FRP
composites have been widely developedfrom the in-plane to
out-of-plane, from the gradient distribution of FVFs to ber orientations, and from the bers spatial arrangement to the change of
material properties.
Martin and Leissa [35] are pioneers to this study and they
focused on the effect of the in-plane FVF distribution on the
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 731 88822421; fax: +86 731 88822330.
E-mail address: p_zhang87@hotmail.com (P. Zhang).
0261-3069/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2009.12.027

mechanical properties of plates. Numerical solutions and some exact solutions under specied boundary conditions were obtained
for the plane elasticity problems. Buckling and vibration of the
plate were also studied by them and it was found that the rearrangement of bers can change the critical buckling loads and resonant frequencies of structures. After that, Shiau et al. [6,7] used
the nite element method (FEM) to model this plate and found that
the reduction of the in-plane FVF near free edges or holes can reduce the stress concentrations there. This kind of FRP plate was
used for the reinforcement of shear walls by Meftah et al. [8,9]
and both the lateral stiffness and vibration characteristics were
studied by using FEM. Nowadays, the gradient design of FVFs is
not limited to the in-plane direction. Through thickness functionally graded design method was introduced by Benatta et al. in
Ref. [10], of which a single layer composite beam was studied by
using the higher order beam theory and effects of different distribution functions on the bending responses were also discussed.
Oyekoya et al. [11] established a nite element model for plates
with the FVFs gradient distribution along multi-directions and
investigated the buckling and vibration problems. Kuo and Shiau
[12] discussed the effect of different through thickness distribution
functions of the FVF on the critical buckling loads and resonance
frequencies of the plate by using the FEM. The purpose of them
is to design structures with ideal buckling and vibration characteristics via the non-uniform distribution of FVFs.
Besides the gradient distribution of FVFs, other methods such as
changing the bers orientations or material properties have also
been proposed in literatures. Batra and Jin [13] found that the res-

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Y. Fu et al. / Materials and Design 31 (2010) 29042915

2. The model

Fig. 1. Optimal design process of functionally graded FRP composite structures.

Consider a laminated rectangular plate with length a, width b

and thickness h placed in the Cartesian coordinate system oxyz
of Fig. 2. It is assumed that the plate has N single layers with equal
thickness h1 = h/N. Each interface is assumed to be bonded perfectly and no initial defect is considered.
For the conventional laminated plate, each layer has unied
k
kM
kM
denotes the
FVF (or ber ratio), i.e. V f V f , where V f
FVF at the mid-plane of the kth layer. However, the ber ratio
distribution of functionally graded composite laminate is nonuniform, which is considered to be variable along the thickness
direction in this paper. A through thickness local coordinate system f(k)(h1/2 6 f(k) 6 h1/2) is established in each single layer
with its origin localized at the corresponding mid-plane. The
kI
FVF at interfaces of the kth layer is denoted to be V f , in
kM
at the mid-plane. A modied power law
distinction with V f
distribution function is dened for the kth layer as follows:
k



kI
kM
Vf  Vf
2jfk j=h1 p

kM

Vf Vf
onant frequency of the plate can be altered by the gradient distribution of ber orientations along the thickness direction. Han et al.
[14] pointed out that the optimum design of bers can improve the
interfacial properties of laminates and established a nite element
model. Cho and Rowlands [15] attempted to change the ber orientations near holes in a short ber reinforced plate to reduce
the stress concentration. Bouremana et al. [16] proposed a new
idea of structural design in thermal environment, of which the ber with negative thermal expansion coefcient was used to eliminate the thermal stress. Overall, the bers volume fraction,
orientation and material properties should all be considered in
the composites optimal design process, as illustrated in Fig. 1. To
achieve a comprehensive optimal design, the buckling and vibration analysis should be carried out together with the failure analysis which needs exact calculations of stress elds beforehand.
Evidently, various aspects must be considered such as the environment, reliability, industrial costs, etc.
Most of the methods used in the above mentioned literatures
are on the basis of higher-order laminate theories and the FEM.
Nevertheless, these conventional appropriate theories encounter
difculties when handling these functionally graded plates, which
are anisotropic and highly non-homogeneous; exact solutions are
quite difcult to get. Therefore, the state space method, a powerful
three dimensional solution method, is utilized in this paper. Functionally graded laminates, with different boundary and plied conditions, are discussed in the numerical examples. The results
indicate that the reduction of FVFs near interfaces can reduce the
in-plane stress concentration. Nonetheless, the transverse stresses
which have lower order than in-plane ones affect little.

where p is the power law index, which would be prescribed in the

design process.
k
The average ber ratio in the kth layer, V f , often named mean
FVF, is dened as

R h1 =2
k

Vf

h1 =2

V f dfk
h1

kM

pV f

kI

Vf

p1

Another form for formula (2) is

kM

Vf



k
k
kI
V f V f  V f =p

3
k

The ber distribution function V f can be easily determined by Eqs.

k
(1) and (3) after given the mean FVF V f as well as the interfacial
kI
ber ratio V f .
k
kM
The FVF at the mid-plane has a restriction 0 6 V min 6 V f
6
k
k
k
V max 6 1, where V min and V max are the minimum and maximum
ber ratio, respectively. So according to Eq. (3), p should satisfy a
relationship as follows:
kI

p P max

Vf

 Vf

kI

Vf

 Vf

!
4

V f  V min V f  V k
max
k

For instance, when V min 0; V k

0:6; p P 2=3 if
max 0:9, and V f
kI
kI
V f 0:4, and p P 1/3 if V f 0:8.
k
The FVF distribution functions for V f 0:6 are illustrated in
Fig. 3. Functionally graded plates would degrade to the convenkI
k
tional one if V f V f . The distribution functions change abruptly
near interfaces for the power law index p = 5 or 10. The larger p is,

Fig. 2. Sketch of the composite laminated plate and its cross section.

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Y. Fu et al. / Materials and Design 31 (2010) 29042915

0
Vf =0.6
0.8

k I

c012
c022

0.6

B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
@

k I

Vf =0.6
k I

Vf =0.8
0.4
-h1/2

h1/2

Fig. 3. Fiber volume fraction distributions along the thickness direction in a single
layer.

c013
c023
c033

Vf =0.4

Vf

c011

B
B
B
B
C B
B
B
@

p=5
p=10

0
c044

sym:
E1
L

0
c055

mLT E1
L

mLT E1
L

E1
T

mTT E1
T

C
C
C
C
C
0 C
C
0 A
c066
0

E1
T
G1
LT

0
G1
TT

sym:

where E, G and m are the Youngs modulus, shear modulus and Poissons ratio, respectively.
The stressstrain relation in the global coordinate system o-xyz
should be transformed as

where r, e, C are the stress, strain and stiffness matrix in the global
coordinate system, which have the form as

ry rz sxz syz sxy gT

r frx
3. Basic equations

e fex ey ez cxz cyz cxy gT

With high non-homogeneity, material properties of the FRP

composite are related to the local ber ratio at each point. Assume
that the matrix and ber are both isotropic and their Youngs modulus and Poissons ratio are denoted as Em, mm and Ef, mf, respectively. Chamis rule of mixture [17] is adopted here to obtain the
composites material properties, as

EL V f Ef 1  V f Em
ET

1

Em
p
V f 1  Em =Ef

GLT GTT

1

Gm
p
V f 1  Gm =Gf

c13

c16

c22

c23

c26 C
C
C
c36 C
C
0 C
C
C
0 A
c66

c44

c45

sym:

c55

r Q r0
C QC Q

8
T

where Q is the coordinate transformation matrix with expression as

follows:

r0 C0 e0

6
0

where r , e and C are the stress, strain and stiffness matrix in the
principle coordinate of materials, respectively, which can be written
as

r0 fr1

c12

c33

where L and T indicate the directions parallel and perpendicular to

the ber, respectively; Vf denotes the ber ratio at a specied point.
The relationship between the shear modulus and other material
parameters is Gf(m) = Ef(m)/(2 + 2mf(m)). It should be noted that Chamis mixed law, due to its exactitude, is more suitable for the 3D
(three dimensional) elasticity analysis than the common rule of
mixture.
Denote 1 to be the direction along the ber and 2, 3 the directions perpendicular to the ber, respectively. Thus the FRP composite is orthotropic in the materials principle coordinate system
o-1 2 3 and the stressstrain relation is

c11

B
B
B
B
CB
B
B
B
@

e Q e0

ET
1
2GTT

These quantities can be obtained through the coordinate transformation from Eq. (6), as

mLT V f mf 1  V f mm
mTT

C
C
C
C
C
C
0 C
C
C
0 A

G1
LT

r Ce
the closer of the gradient distribution function to the uniform one
is; a conventional distribution form would be got when p ? 1.

11

r2 r3 s13 s23 s12 gT

e0 fe1 e2 e3 c13 c23 c12 gT

c2

s2

0 0

B s2
B
B
B0
Q B
B0
B
B
@0

c2

0 0

1 0

s

cs 0 0

cs

2cs

2cs C
C
C
0 C
C
0 C
C
C
0 A
c 2  s2

where c , cosh, s , sinh. Eq. (7) is the stressstrain relation of the

laminates with functionally graded FVF for the 3D elasticity
problem.
The 3D equilibrium equations for elastic plates can be written
as

@ x rx @ y sxy @ z sxz 0
@ x sxy @ y ry @ z syz 0

@ x sxz @ y syz @ z rz 0
As innitesimal deformation theory is considered here, the straindisplacement relationship is

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ex @ x u; cxz @ z u @ x w
ey @ y v ; cyz @ z v @ y w
ez @ z w; cxy @ y u @ x v

10

where u, v and w are the displacements along axis x, y and z,

respectively.
Substituting Eq. (10) into the stressstrain relation Eq. (7) and
assembling with the equilibrium Eq. (9), the state-space equation
[18] of the plate can be obtained as follows:

@ z g Ag

11

where g is the state-space vector and A is the coefcient matrix,

which have can be written as


g u

v rz sxz syz

T


0 A1
A
A2 0
0
a1 c55 a1 c45
B
A1 @
a1 c44
sym:
B
A2 @

>
>
sxz x; y; z >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> syz x; y; z >
>
>
>
>
>
>
;
:
wx; y; z

9
~ mn z cosmpn sinnp1 >
u
>
>
>
>
v~ mn z sinmpn cosnp1 >
>
>
>
>
r~ zmn z sinmpn sinnp1 =
>
>s
~xzmn z cosmpn sinnp1 >
n1 >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>s
~yzmn z sinmpn cosnp1 >
>
>
>
>
>
>
;
:
~ mn z sinmpn sinnp1
w

8
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
1 X
1 >
<
X
m1

14

where n = x/a and 1 = y/b are two dimensionless variables.

Three other stress components, which are not included in the
state space vector, can also be expanded as

9
8
~ xmn sinmpn sinnp1 >
=
<r
1 X
1 >
X
ry
r~ ymn sinmpn sinnp1
>
>
>
>
:
sxy ; m1 n1 : s~xymn cosmpn cosnp1 ;
9
8
>
=
< rx >

15

The mechanical load q applied on the top surface of the plate can be
set as

9
8
ux; y; z >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
v x; y; z >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
=
< rz x; y; z >

@ x

qx; y; h

1 X
1
X

~mn sinmpn sinnp1

q

16

m1 n1

C
@ y A
0

1
a2 @ xx 2a3 @ xy a4 @ yy a3 @ xx a4 a5 @ xy a6 @ yy a7 @ x a8 @ y
C
a4 @ xx 2a6 @ xy a9 @ yy
a8 @ x a10 @ y A
sym:
c1
33

After substituting Eq. (14) into the state-space Eq. (11), spatial variables x and y can be eliminated automatically. Thus for each order
of m and n, there exists

@ z gmn Amn gmn

17

where

1
a1
;
c44 c55  c245
a4

c236
 c66 ;
c33

c23 c36
 c26 ;
c33
c23

:
c33

a6
a10

c2
a2 13  c11 ;
c33



~ mn v~ mn r
~ zmn s
~xzmn s
~yzmn w
~ mn T
gmn u

c13 c36
a3
 c16 ;
c33

a5

c13 c23
 c12 ;
c33

a7

c13
;
c33

a8

c36
;
c33

a9

c223
 c22 ;
c33

For the other three stress components rx, ry and sxy, there exists

9
8
>
=
< rx >
>
:

ry
>
sxy ;

a2 @ x a3 @ y
B
@ a5 @ x a6 @ y

a3 @ x a5 @ y
a6 @ x a9 @ y

a3 @ x a4 @ y

a4 @ x a6 @ y

18 9
a7 >
=
<u>
C
a10 A v
>
: >
a8
rz ;

12

rx, ry, sxy can be got automatically from the solutions to Eq. (11).
Thus the solving methods are focused on in the following part.

4. Solution methodology
4.1. Classic state space method
Classic state space method can obtain excellent analytical
solution; however, both the boundary conditions and material
properties are restrictiveonly simply supported or sliding
boundary conditions as well as orthotropic material are applicable. For the laminate considered in this section which is crossply laminated and simply supported, its boundary conditions
can be written as

x 0; a : rx w v 0
y 0; b : ry w u 0

13

To satisfy these equations, the unknown state space vector is expanded with trigonometric series, as

1
0 mp
c1
44
B
C
B
C
B
0
0 c1
np C
55
B
C
B
C
B
m p np
0 C
B
C
B
C
Amn B
C
2
2
2
2
2
B c66 n p  a2 m p
C
c

a
mn
p
a
m
p
66
5
7
B
C
B
C
B
C
0
B c66  a5 mnp2 c66 m2 p2  a9 n2 p2 a10 np
C
@
A
a10 np
c1
a7 mp
33

And for Eq. (12), there exists

8~
0
18 ~ 9
a2 mp a5 np a7 > u
r 9
>
=
=
< xmn >
< mn >
C
r~ ymn B
@ a5 mp a9 np a10 A v~ mn
>
>
>
>
;
;
:
:
s~xymn
c66 np c66 mp
0
r~ zmn

18

It is obvious that Eq. (17) is a matrix differential equation only with

variable z. An analytical solution to Eq. (17) can be obtained for the
case that Amn is a constant matrix or exponential with z coordinate;
however, this is impossible in this paperthe material is nonhomogeneous and the through thickness distribution function is
complicated. Therefore, a numerical method is used here to obtain
3D solutions. The laminate is divided into R numerical layers with
equal thickness in z direction. Denote the z coordinate of the top
j
j1
and bottom interface of the jth numerical layer as zI and zI ,
respectively. So for each thin numerical layer the coefcient matrix
Amn can be treated as constant. By using the CayleyHamilton theorem [19], it can be obtained from Eq. (17) that

h

i
j1
gmn z exp Amn z  zI
gj1
mn

19

For the jth numerical layer, there exists

h

i
j
j1
j1
j1
gmn
gj
Tj
mn exp Amn zI  zI
mn gmn

20

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Y. Fu et al. / Materials and Design 31 (2010) 29042915

j

equations can not be solved directlythey must be incorporated

with the boundary conditions Eq. (26). Finally, the governing equations for full-clamped plates have the form as follows:

j
Y

@ z uij a1 c55 sxzij  a1 c45 syzij 

here gmn is the state-space vector at the jth numerical interface,

while Tj
mn is known as the transfer matrix. Applying Eq. (20) to each
j
numerical layer then the state-space vector gmn can also be written
in the form as

gj
mn

0
Ti
mn gmn

21

N
x 1
X

Pik wkj

k2

i1

For the Rth numerical interface, i.e. the top surface of the laminate,
there exists

gR
mn

R
Y

0
Ti
mn gmn

22

i1
R

@ z v ij a1 c45 sxzij a1 c44 syzij 

N
y 1
X

Q jl wil

l2

@ z rzij 

N
x 1 h
X

Pik

1
1 1
sxzkj c44 P1
i1 P 1k P iNx P Nx k wkj

k2

here gmn and gmn are the state-space vector at the top and bottom
surfaces of the plate. And the mechanical loads at these two surfaces are set as
R
~mn
~R
~0
~R
~ 0
s~0
r~ zmn
q
xzmn sxzmn syzmn syzmn rzmn 0;

23

N
y 1 h
X

Q jl

1
1 1
syzil c55 Q 1
j1 Q 1l Q jNy Q Ny l wil

l2



i
2
1 1
1 1
P ik a2 ukj a3 v kj  a7 c33 P i1 P 1k P iNx P Nx k a7 ukj a8 v kj

N
x 1 h
X

@ z sxzij

k2

gmn and gmn can be determined by solving Eqs. (22) and (23); furtherly, state-space vectors at other numerical interfaces can also
~ ymn and s
~xymn can easily
~ xmn ; r
be obtained from Eq. (21). At last, r
be gained from Eq. (18) automatically. So the 3D solutions to the
static bending problem of the functionally graded laminated plate
are presented.

N
y 1 h
X



i
2
1 1
1 1
Q jl a4 uil a6 v il  a8 c33 Q j1 Q 1l Q jNy Q Ny l a8 uil a10 v il

l2

N
x 1
X

P ik

N
y 1
X
l2

k2

Q jl 2a3 ukl a4 a5 v kl  a7

N
y 1
X

Q jl

N
x 1
X

P ik

rzkj a8

k2

rzil

l2

4.2. Differential quadrature-state space method

@ z syzij

It is quite difcult to give the eigenfunctions like Eq. (14) directly for general cases such as clamped or free edge boundary conditions or the laminate is angle-plied, then the classic state-space
method cannot be used. Fortunately, a semi-analytical method
named DQSSM (differential quadrature-state space method) [20]
is capable to handle these problems. The main idea of this method
is to use the DQM (differential quadrature method) to discrete x
and y variables in Eq. (11), and then solve state-space vectors at
all the discrete points as a whole. In what follows we will present
the details of this method.
The sampling points of DQM are taken as [21]

1  cosi  1p=Nx  1
a;
2
1  cosj  1p=Ny  1
yj
b;
2
xi

i 1; 2; . . . ; N x
24

xi ;yi

Nx
X
k1

P ik

Ny
X

Q jl Wkl

i


2
1 1
1 1
P ik a3 ukj a4 v kj  a8 c33 P i1 P 1k P iNx P Nx k a7 ukj a8 v kj

k2

N
y 1 h
X



2
1 1
1 1
Q jl a6 uil a9 v il  a10 c33 Q j1 Q 1l Q jNy Q Ny l

l2
N
x 1
X

 a8 uil a10 v il 

P ik

N
x 1
X

P ik

rzkj a10

N
x 1
X

Q jl

rzil

27

l2

k2

@ z wij

N
y 1
X

Q jl a4 a5 ukl 2a6 v kl 

l1

k2

a8

N
y 1
X

Pik a7 ukj a8 v kj

N
y 1
X

Q jl a8 uil a10 v il c1

33 rzij

l2

k2

where i = 2, 3, . . . , Nx  1; j = 2, 3, . . . , Ny  1. These equations can also

be written in the matrix form similar to Eq. (17) as

bg
@ z ^g A^

j 1; 2; . . . ; N y

where xi and yj are the coordinates of the sampling points; Nx and Ny

are the number of discrete points in the corresponding directions.
For a specied function W, its partial differential derivative at point
(xi, yj) can be written as

@ rs W

@xr @ys

N
x 1 h
X

25

l1

^g fuij

v ij rzij sxzij sxzij

28

wij gT

b is the coefcient ma^ is the total state space vector and A

where g
trix. It should be noted that ^
g includes state space variables at all of
the sampling points except boundaries.
State space vectors at boundaries have two parts: one for displacements shown in Eq. (26), the other for unknown stresses written as
N
x 1
X

N
y 1
X

where Pik is the weighting coefcient for rth order derivative res
r
spect to x, similar meaning for Q jl in y direction. Details for P ik
s
and Q jl can be found in Ref. [21], which would not be presented
here.
In this section we only consider the case that the laminate is
four-edge clamped; other boundary cases are similar to this and
would not be introduced. For a full-clamped plate, the boundary
conditions can be written as

sxzij c44

x 0; a : u v w 0

where i and j indicate the boundary points. Stresses in Eq. (29) can
be obtained from the solutions of Eq. (28).
In-plane stress components rx, ry and sxy can also be written in
the discrete form, after applying Eq. (25) to Eq. (12), which are as
follows:

y 0; b : u v w 0

26

State space equations at all of the sampling points can be obtained

after substituting Eq. (25) into Eq. (11). Nonetheless, this series of

Pik wkj c45

k2

syzij c45

N
x 1
X

1
Pik wkj

c55

rzij c33

k2

Q jl wil

l2

k2
N
x 1
X

l2
N
y 1
X

Q jl wil

1
Pik a7 ukj

a8 v kj  c33

N
y 1
X

Q jl a8 uil a10 v il

l2

29

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Y. Fu et al. / Materials and Design 31 (2010) 29042915

rxij 
ryij 

N
y 1
X

k2

l2

N
x 1
X

N
y 1
X

N
x 1
X

Pik a2 ukj a3 v kj 
Pik a5 ukj a6 v kj 

sxyij 

Q jl a6 uil a9 v il  a10 rzij

l2

k2
N
x 1
X

^gj;0 ^gj1;Rn

Q jl a3 uil a5 v il  a7 rzij

1
P ik a3 ukj

a4 v kj 

N
y 1
X

a6 v il  a8 rzij

b j;i ^gj;0
T

31

i1

b j;i is the transfer matrix within the jth sub-layer, which is

where T
dened as

h 
i
b zj;i  zj;i1
exp A
I
I

32

Obviously, for variables at the top surface of the jth sub-layer, i.e.
^
gj;Rn , there exists

^gj;Rn

Rn
Y

b j;i ^gj;0
T

35

z h : sxzij syzij 0; rzij q

where i = 1, 2, . . . , Nx; j = 1, 2, . . . , Ny.

At a glance, it seems that Eq. (28) is similar to Eq. (17) and could
be solved as a routine. Conversely, difculties would be encountered when programming. As a shortcoming of state space method,
bad conditioned matrix would occur if the coefcient matrix is
quite large, which may leads to signicant errors, especially when
the number of discrete numbers increases or the plate becomes
thicker. Fortunately, a joint coupling technique [20] can be used
to overcome this defect, which will be introduced as below.
As illustrated in Fig. 4, the laminate is divided into Rs sub-layers,
each with Rn numerical layers. Moreover, all of the sub-layers or
numerical layers have equal thickness. Similar to the classic state
space case, the z coordinate of the top and bottom interface of
j;k
and
the kth numerical layer in jth sub-layer are denoted as zI
j;k1
, respectively. Thus the state space vector ^
g within one subzI
layer has the relationship as follows:

b j;i
T

For state space vectors at the top and bottom surfaces of the lamigRs ;Rn , there are six variables known as loading
nate, i.e. ^
g1;0 and ^
conditions:

z 0 : sxzij syzij rzij 0

1
Q jl a4 uil

30

k
Y

34

l2

k2

^gj;k

j 2; 3; . . . ; Rs

j 1; 2; . . . ; Rs

33

i1

This is the transfer relationship between variables at the two surfaces of the jth sub-layer. If the state space vector ^
gj;0 was known,
all the variables in other numerical layers of the jth sub-layer can be
obtained from Eq. (31).
Unlike the classic state space method, joint coupling technique
reserves unknown state space vectors at interfaces between sublayers, instead of eliminating them to get a simple relationship as
Eq. (22). The interfacial continuation equation between two adjacent sub-layers is

where q is the applied load on the laminates top surface.

All of the unknown state space vectors at interfaces of sub-layers can be obtained by solving Eqs. (33)(35); furtherly, state space
variables at each numerical layer can also be gained through Eq.
(31). Note that though the introduction of joint coupling technique
here brings more variables to solve at one time, it truly has high
degree of accuracy, which can be observed in the next part. It
should be mentioned that the sub-layer number Rs is not necessarily equal to the lamina number N; however, two laminas which
have different plied orientations should not be included in one
sub-layer, or may lead to large numerical errors.
Of course, the numerical layers divided in each sub-layer is not
needed for conventional composite laminates, which is homogeneous in each single lamina, as studied in Ref. [20]. Nevertheless,
only divide the laminate into sub-layers for functionally graded
plates is computational infeasible: huge amounts of variables must
be solved at one time to get accuracy solutions. So to divide each
sub-layer into many numerical layers is suggested for functionally
graded plates: it on the one hand reduces the number of variables
to be solved at one time, and on the other hand guarantees the
accuracy of solutions.
5. Numerical examples
5.1. Comparison and convergence study
Comparison calculation is presented rstly to validate the accuracy and effectiveness of the utilized classic state space method.
Conventional symmetric [0/90/90/0] laminated plates are considered and it is assumed that the plate is simply supported and
~11 sinpn sinp1 on top surfaces. The material
loaded with q q
properties are taken as

EL 174:6 GPa;
GTT 1:4 GPa;

ET 7 GPa;

Some dimensionless variables in Table 1 are dened as follows:

3

wa=2; b=2; 0ET h

 100;
~11 a4
q

 2
a b h
h
r y ry ; ; ~ 2
2 2 4 q11 a


w

 2
h
h
;
~11 a2
2 q
a
 h
syz syz ; 0; 0 ~
2
q11 a

sxy sxy 0; 0;

Fig. 4. Illustration of the computational structure in the laminates thickness

direction. (a) Divide of sub-layers. (b) Divide of numerical layers in one sub-layer.

GLT 3:5 GPa;

mLT mTT 0:25

r x rx

 2
a b h
h
;
; ;
~11 a2
2 2 2 q

sxz sxz 0; ; 0 ~ ;
2
q11 a

here a/b = 1. From the comparison in Table 1, it is obvious that our

results agree well with Paganos elasticity solutions [22], for either
thin or thick laminates.
In what follows the reliability and convergence of DQSSM is
studied. A square isotropic plate (m = 0.3) is considered and our results are compared with Ls (by using DQSSM) and Liews (by
using DQM in three directions). The plate is full-clamped and
loaded with uniform distributed loading 0.5q0 and 0.5q0 at the
top and bottom surfaces, respectively. As shown in Table 2, our re-

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250

Table 1
Comparison of the deection and stresses responses of laminated plates [0/90/90/
0] with Ref. [22]
Source


w

r x

r y

syz

sxz

xy
s

Pagano
Present
Pagano
Present
Pagano
Present
Pagano
Present

1.954
1.9367
0.743
0.7370
0.517
0.5130
0.4385
0.4346

0.720
0.7203
0.559
0.5586
0.543
0.5428
0.539
0.5388

0.663
0.6519
0.401
0.3965
0.308
0.3052
0.276
0.2683

0.292
0.2915
0.196
0.1959
0.156
0.1556
0.141
0.1389

0.219
0.2193
0.301
0.3014
0.328
0.3282
0.337
0.3388

0.0467
0.04666
0.0275
0.02750
0.0230
0.02302
0.0216
0.02135

10
20
100

200

Material properties (GPa)

a/h

T300/5208

150

EL
ET

100

50

GLT=GTT

sults coincide with Ls except the 13  13 case, which was not

reported formerly. It should be mentioned that bad conditioned
matrix was encountered in our calculation when h = 0.2a and
Nx  Ny = 11  11 or 13  13, though the results are acceptable.
Nevertheless, this defect can be overcome by increasing the sublayer number Rssix sub-layers are enough to get reliable solutions
for these cases.

0.0

0.2

For both two cases some dimensionless variables are dened as

follows:
Case 1:

 x; r
 y
r

rx



 2
a b
a b
h
; ; z ; ry
; ;z
~11 a2
q
2 2
2 2

0.8

1.0

Fig. 5. Effect of different ber ratios on the material properties of the FRP
composite.

rz

5.2. Laminates with gradient FVF

~11 sinpn
Case 1: Four edges simply supported and with q q
sinp1 loaded on the top surface; a = b = 4h.
Case 2: Four edges clamped and with q = q0 loaded on the top surface; a = b = 10h.

0.6

Vf

 z; s
xy ; s
xz ; s
yz 
r

In this section laminated plates with variable ber ratio along

the thickness direction are analyzed. The Graphite/Epoxy composite T300/5208 is studied here with corresponding material properties shown in Table 3. Effects of FVFs on the composites material
properties are illustrated in Fig. 5. It can be seen that the longituk
dinal Youngs modulus EL is proportional to V f ; however, the
transverse elastic modulus and the shear modulus increase markk
edly only when V f is quite large.
For convenience, it is assumed that each single layer has the
same ber distribution function. The power law index is set as
k
p = 5, and the mean ber ratio V f 0:6. Two different cases of
square laminates are considered in this section as

0.4




a
 h
a b
b
; ; z ; sxy 0; 0; z; sxz 0; ; z ; syz ; 0; z
~11 a
2 2
2
2
q

Case 2:

 x; r
 y
r

rx

 
 2
a b
a b
h
; ; z ; ry
; ;z
2 2
2 2
q0 a2

 z; s
xy ; s
xz ; s
yz 
r

rz








a b
a b
a b
a b
h
; ; z ; sxy ; ; z ; sxz ; ; z ; syz ; ; z
2 2
4 4
4 2
2 4
q0 a

Firstly, results to Case 1 are shown in Figs. 6 and 7, for symmetric

and asymmetric laminates, respectively. It can be seen from the
comparisons that different distribution forms of ber ratios rearrange the stress elds. The functionally graded plate degrades to
kI
the conventional one when the interfacial ber ratio V f 0:6.
As the power law index p = 5 set here, it is evident from Fig. 3 that
the material properties of the composite only change abruptly near
kI
kI
interfaces and surfaces for V f 0:3 or V f 0:9. Correspond y change signicantly
 x and r
ingly, the in-plane normal stresses r
in this region after the gradient design. The reduction of the interkI
facial ber ratio V f decreases these two stress components, which
can reduce the interfacial stress concentrations of laminates. The
xy declines near interfaces when there are
in-plane shear stress s
fewer bers in this region, which is similar to the in-plane normal
stresses. However, the redistribution of ber ratios doesnt affect
the transverse stresses effectively, especially for the transverse

Table 2
Comparison of the results to full-clamped isotropic plates with literatures.

a=h

Nx  Ny

2Gq1
0 h

Present (Rs = 3)

Present (Rs = 6)

L [20]

Liew [23]

Present (Rs = 3)

Present (Rs = 6)

L [20]

Liew [23]

55
77
99
11  11
13  13

10.96941
11.13728
11.13522
11.17399a
11.18524a

10.96941
11.13728
11.13522
11.17399
11.18524

10.96941
11.13728
11.13522
11.17399

11.15777
11.13736
11.13671
11.17407
11.18546

4.250688
3.870329
3.887901
3.814499a
3.880341a

4.250688
3.870329
3.887901
3.814500
3.880341

4.25069
3.87033
3.88790
3.81450

4.36199
3.86034
3.89135
3.81293
3.88135

10

55
77
99
11  11
13  13

123.8261
124.6102
123.7850
125.1241
125.0002

123.8261
124.6102
123.7850
125.1241
125.0002

123.8261
124.6102
123.7850
125.1241

124.4904
124.6105
123.7856
125.1241
125.0003

15.95727
14.95357
13.66635
14.42233
14.10789

15.95727
14.95357
13.66635
14.42233
14.10789

15.9573
14.9536
13.6664
14.4223

16.0563
14.9511
13.6667
14.4223
14.1079

1

q1
0 rx a=2; b=2; h

wa=2; b=2; h=2

Cases that encounter bad conditioned matrix.

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Table 3
Material properties of the ber and matrix.
Material

E (GPa)

G (GPa)

Graphite T300
Epoxy 5208

231
3.9

91
1.4

0.27
0.35

 z , which remains the same after the gradient

normal stress r
yz seem rearranging
xz and s
design. Transverse shear stresses s
when the ber distribution changes but the alteration is very small,

and the values of them decrease a little at the center point when
kI
V f becomes larger. There are mainly three reasons that account
for this phenomenon. First, the softening of the material stiffness
may increase the strain, which generates a mount of stresses. Second, different from the longitudinal elastic modulus, the transverse
elastic modulus and the shear modulus change slowly (see Fig. 5)
with respect to the FVF so the ber ratios effect is not obvious.
Moreover, loading transfer between adjacent laminas is commonly
induced by transverse stresses, which makes this kind of design
method not easy to reduce transverse stresses near interfaces as

0.8

0.50
k I

Vf =0.3
k I

Vf =0.6

0.4

0.25

k I

0.0

Vf =0.9

-0.4

-0.8
0.0

0.00

-0.25

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

-0.50
0.0

1.0

0.2

0.4

z/h
0.8

0.8

1.0

0.6

0.8

1.0

0.3

0.4

0.2

0.0

xy

0.6

z/h

0.1

-0.4
0.0
-0.8
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

0.0

0.2

0.4

z/h

z/h
0.3

0.20

0.15

yz

xz

0.2

0.10

0.1
0.05

0.0

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

z/h

0.8

1.0

0.00
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

z/h

Fig. 6. Interlaminar stress distribution of symmetric [0/90/90/0] simply supported laminated plates with variable ber spacing.

1.0

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0.8
0.4

k I

Vf =0.3
k I

Vf =0.6

0.4

k I

Vf =0.9

0.0
0.0

-0.4
-0.4

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

-0.8
0.0

1.0

0.2

0.4

z/h
0.8

0.8

0.6

0.8

0.6

0.8

1.0

0.3

0.4

0.2

0.0

xy

0.6

z/h

0.1

-0.4
0.0
-0.8
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

0.0

0.2

0.4

1.0

z/h

z/h
0.3

0.2

0.2

yz

xz

0.3

0.1

0.0

0.1

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

z/h

0.0
0.0

0.2

0.4

1.0

z/h

Fig. 7. Interlaminar stress distribution of asymmetric [90/0/90/0] simply supported laminated plates with variable ber spacing.

the in-plane stresses. Nonetheless, transverse stresses are usually

in lower order of magnitude than in-plane ones; the change of
in-plane stresses by redistribution the bers is still signicantly,
which provides a method to resolve the interfacial stress concentration problems.
In what follows we will discuss the plates with clamped edges
of Case 2. Both cross-plied and angle-plied laminates are considered with results illustrated in Figs. 8 and 9, respectively. The
laminate is divided into 10 sub-layers within each there are 10
numerical layers to obtain accurate and smooth solutions. Whats

more, Nx  Ny = 7  7 meshes are chosen here. The gures show

that the reduction of ber ratios near interfaces can reduce the
stress concentrations there, which is similar to the simply supported cases. Transverse stresses rearrange a little but the slight
change can be neglected at interfaces. The reasons have been
pointed out in the former and would not be repeated here. Different from the cross-plied laminates, angle-plied ones are more
interesting and complex. For this kind of laminate, in-plane shear
xy may be quite large, due to the well known stretch-shear
stress s
xy is very large at the
coupling phenomena. As shown in Fig. 9, s

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0.30

0.4
k I

Vf =0.3
k I

Vf =0.6

0.2

0.15

k I

0.0

Vf =0.9

-0.15

-0.2

-0.4
0.0

0.00

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

-0.30
0.0

1.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

z/h

z/h
0.50

0.10

0.00

xy

0.25

0.05

-0.25

-0.50
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

0.00
0.0

1.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

0.6

0.8

1.0

z/h

z/h
0.3

0.20

0.15

yz

xz

0.2

0.10

0.1
0.05

0.0
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

0.00
0.0

z/h

0.2

0.4

1.0

z/h

Fig. 8. Interlaminar stress distribution of cross-ply [0/90/0/90/0] clamped laminated plates with variable ber spacing.

interfaces of the 45 or 45 layers; nevertheless, this stress concentration can still be reduced by the proposed gradient design method.
Note that classic state space can not handle the angle-plied laminates for any boundary conditions, which must be solved by DQSSM.
From another point of view, the redistribution of ber ratios
leads to the change of not only stress elds but also the strength
of composites, commonly larger FVF has stronger strength. Therefore, the strength criterion seems variational in each point, which
should be carefully treated in the design process. Accurate determination of the stress eld and strength criteria eld is necessary for

the failure analysis. The optimum purpose of ber distributions is

to ensure the structure has both good overall mechanical properties
and sufcient local strengths in each point. Only satisfying the buckling or vibration characteristics is not enough.
6. Conclusion
Designability is an advantage of the FRP composite and recently
the gradient design of it attracts many researchers attention. Various gradient design methods are proposed, including the non-uni-

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0.4

0.2
k I

Vf =0.3
k I

Vf =0.6

0.2

0.1

k I

0.0

Vf =0.9

-0.2

-0.4
0.0

0.0

-0.1

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

-0.2
0.0

1.0

0.2

0.4

z/h

0.6

0.8

1.0

z/h
0.10

0.5

xy

0.0

0.05

-0.5

-1.0
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

0.00
0.0

1.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

z/h

z/h
0.15

0.4

0.12

0.3

yz

xz

0.09
0.2

0.06
0.1

0.0
0.0

0.03

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

z/h

0.00
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

z/h

Fig. 9. Interlaminar stress distribution of angle-ply [0/45/90/45/0] clamped laminated plates with variable ber spacing.

form distributions of the bers orientation, volume fraction or

material properties, to gain ideal structural properties. Both the
overall mechanical properties and the local strength should be considered, in the composites design process, of the latter accurate
stress elds is needed for the failure analysis.
The purpose of this paper is to present 3D methods to exactly
determine the stresses in this kind of highly heterogeneous laminated plates. For specied case the classic state space method
can be used, while a sub-layer based DQSSM is suggested for the
general cases. Numerical examples indicate that the stress elds
rearrange after the functionally graded design. In-plane stresses

near interfaces would decrease if the ber ratio reduces in this region, which provides a method to resolve the interfacial stress concentration problems. However, transverse stresses which have
lower order of magnitude than the in-plane ones do not change
very much.
Though the 3D methods can obtain accurate solutions, they
have to some extent lost the computational efciency, especially
when computing the transfer matrix for each single numerical
layer. In the future studies, specic laminate theories, which have
both advantages in accuracy and efciency, must be developed for
heterogeneous laminates which have general boundary and load

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Y. Fu et al. / Materials and Design 31 (2010) 29042915

conditions. Whats more, the strength criterion of this kind of functionally graded material is also a problem to be resolved later on.
Acknowledgements
Support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China
through Grant No. 10872066 should be acknowledged. The authors
thank for the suggestion from Professor Chaofeng L in Zhejiang
University of China and also the valuable advice of reviewers.
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