Mechanics of Composite Materials September 11, 2017

Mechanical Engineering MECH 530 Due: September 20, 2017

Project, Assignment #1

This assignment is a simple task to get you

started and familiarize yourself with
whatever computer system you decide to
work on.
The first part of the project is to write an
input and output interface for your program.
You must input the following parameters in
order to describe the problem:

• Material properties: modulus parameters.

In order to form a material property stiffness matrix, the following parameters are required for
any composite material: Ex, Ey, Es, and vx (Poisson’s ratio).
• Material properties: strength parameters.
Five necessary strength parameters required. (To be discussed in a later chapter. They are similar
to "yield strength" or "ultimate strength" in an isotropic material.): Xt, Xc, Yt, Yc, and Sc.

• We want to have a choice of materials, so make an option in your program to use one of a
possible five materials, i.e., have a database of five materials, ready to use. The five are
graphite/epoxy (T300/N5208), Fiberglass (E-glass/epoxy), Kevlar/epoxy (Kev49/epoxy),
graphite epoxy (AS/H3501), and graphite/ thermoplastic (AS4/PEEK). The data can be found in
Appendix C of the notes (material properties) with the following nomenclature somewhat
different from the notes (X=Xt, X'=Xc, Y=Yt, Y'=Yc, and S=Sc) and thickness of a ply is listed
as ho. Thickness of a ply is a material property.
• Geometry parameters, used to describe the problem. These include a description of the ply
layup, i.e., the total number of layers, n, with the individual ply thickness, ti, and ply orientation,
θi, of each layer. The problem may have a central honeycomb core, so input core thickness, 2zc.
(see diagram). Note: if using fixed arrays, then allow for a possibility of up to 24 different layers.

• Calculate the following in SI units, using [902/40/-40/90/-45/45]s as an example layup, with

graphite/epoxy (T300/N5208) material (no core, zc = 0.0).

1) output all input parameters (include labels and proper units, e.g. MPa, m)
2) form the "on-axis" [S] and [Q] matrices, and output these matrices in with proper units (on-
axis [S] and [Q] are the same for each layer, so only output once)

Note: Be sure to format the output in a readable "user friendly" format with proper titles
and SI units indicated so that nothing is confusing.