Composite Structures 116 (2014) 55–66

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Composite Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

A contact extended isogeometric layerwise approach for the buckling

analysis of delaminated composites
Yujie Guo a,⇑, Martin Ruess a, Zafer Gürdal b
a
Aerospace Structures and Computational Mechanics, Delft University of Technology, Kluyverweg 1, 2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands
b
McNair Center for Aerospace Innovation and Research, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Buckling of composite laminates with delaminations is studied based on a proposed isogeometric
Available online 21 May 2014 layerwise approach. The isogeometric approach employs the NURBS basis functions of the geometry’s
description to approximate the physical response in an isoparametric sense. Layerwise theories provide
Keywords: an accurate prediction of the three-dimensional structural responses of composite laminates while
Isogeometric analysis maintaining a two-dimensional data structure. Usually, to model the delaminations through thickness,
Laminated composite the displacement field is enriched with a unit step Heaviside function which allows for discontinuities
Delamination
at the delamination interfaces. An improved implementation of a displacement-based layerwise theory
Buckling
Contact analysis
based on the isogeometric paradigm is proposed. The delaminated and undelaminated regions of the
Layerwise theory laminate are modeled as separate patches. For the undelaminated and delaminated patches respectively,
the C0 -continuity and discontinuity conditions of the displacement field at the ply interfaces can be easily
facilitated within the isogeometric framework. More reliable and accurate buckling loads are obtained by
considering a contact analysis across the delamination interfaces to avoid physically inadmissible
buckling modes. The proposed model is verified using laminated composite beam plates. The results
are compared to a classical layerwise approach. The numerical results confirm the accuracy of the
proposed isogeometric model.
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction local discontinuity of the transverse stress components. In

With the increasing use of composite laminates in modern
industries, especially in the aerospace industry, various methods
have been proposed for the analysis of laminated composite struc-
tures in a variety of areas, such as linear buckling [1,2], non-linear
buckling [3,4], wave propagation [5,6] or stress analysis [7,8]. A
broad overview of laminated composite materials and the related
mathematical models can be found e.g. in Carrera [9] or Reddy
[10]. Depending on the displacement or stress expansions through
the laminate thickness, two major analysis strategies are distin-
guished: equivalent single layer methods (ESL) and layerwise
methods (LW). As is well known, ESL methods, i.e., classical or
shear deformation laminate theory, often fail to accurately capture
the complete three-dimensional stress field at the ply level in mod-
erately thick and thick laminates due to the fact that transverse
strain components are incorrectly assumed to be continuous across
the interface of dissimilar materials which entails a non-physical
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 0614479398; fax: +31 0152785337.
E-mail address: y.guo@tudelft.nl (Y. Guo).
Demasi’s paper [11], a special ESL method called the ‘Variational
Asymptotic Plate and Shell Analysis’ (VAPAS) is developed. It is
reported that, except for extreme cases of thick sandwich
structures with very large modulus contrast, VAPAS can be used
as an effective alternative to avoid expensive 3D finite element
analysis. In contrast to ESL methods, displacement-based layerwise
techniques assume separate displacement field expansions in
in-plane and out-of-plane directions. Following equilibrium
considerations, the transverse displacement component is defined
to be C0 -continuous at ply interfaces and thereby yield a more
accurate description of the complete stress state.
In Robbins’s [12] and Reddy’s [13] work, one-dimensional
Lagrangian finite elements are used through the thickness to
approximate three components of the displacement field which
automatically enforces C0 -continuity conditions at layer interfaces.
This approach results in a continuous in-plane and discontinuous
transverse strain fields, hence, allowing for the possibility of
continuous transverse stresses at the layer interfaces. Compared
to conventional 3-D finite element models, Reddy’s layerwise
model is computationally more efficient while retaining the same
modelling capabilities.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2014.05.006
0263-8223/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
56 Y. Guo et al. / Composite Structures 116 (2014) 55–66
Delamination in composite laminates is a common defect either
pre-existing or generated during their service times by impact,
fatigue etc. The presence of delamination may cause an obvious
reduction of the load carrying capacity of a laminate. For example,
due to the local instability in the vicinity of a delamination, the
laminate may buckle at a level of compressive loads well below
the design value for the undelaminated composite structure.
Generally, there are two ways of dealing with buckling analysis.
The first one follows the history of load–displacement variations in
a non-linear analysis [14,4], the second is based on the solution of
an eigenvalue problem [15] to obtain the buckling loads and mode
shapes. A one-dimensional analytical model was first proposed by
Chai et al. [16] to investigate the buckling behavior of a delaminat-
ed composite structure. Following Simitses et al. [17,18], proposing
a one-dimensional beam-plate theory to predict the buckling loads
and growth of delamination, the influences of both delamination
geometries and positions of the buckling loads are studied.
Kardomateas and Schmueser [19] and Chen [20] include the shear
deformation effect in the one-dimensional model which reduces
the overestimation of the buckling load for a delaminated compos-
ite structure.
Apart from the above one-dimensional models, Barbero [21]
proposes a layerwise plate theory to model the delamination in
composite laminates, in which, the displacement field is enriched
with a unit step function to allow for separation and slipping at
delamination surfaces. Lee et al. [22] follows this layerwise
approach to study the buckling problem of axially loaded compos-
ite beam plates based on the solution of an eigenvalue problem.
The proposed layerwise approach yields accurate results at a
reduced computing time. Most of the references above which
address the buckling of single or multiple delaminations of lami-
nated composites, e.g. [22], do not consider buckling modes where
contact between delaminated plies occurs. In general, physically
inadmissible mode shapes with overlapping plies may appear,
hence, it is necessary to include a contact treatment in the buckling
analysis of delaminated laminates. Peck and Springer [23] include a
contact model in the eigenvalue buckling analysis with reasonable
results. Their contact model considers a delaminated ply resting on
an elastic foundation. Regarding the contact problem, Suemasu
[24] adds imaginary springs between two delaminated layers to
provide the resistance forces and moments eliminating the inad-
missible mode shapes. The same idea is adopted in Sekine’s [25]
and Kouchakzadeh’s [15] work. A similar artificial spring approach
based on contact forces is presented in Hu [26] for Reissner–
Mindlin plates. The contact forces of that approach are found from
a sensitivity-based update iteration scheme.
Isogeometric analysis, recently introduced by Hughes et al. [27],
is a novel concept in computational mechanics aimed at unifying
computer aided design (CAD) and finite element analysis (FEA).
In contrast to classical FEA where both the geometry and the
unknown solution field is approximated with Lagrange polynomi-
als, isogeometric analysis (IGA) employs the basis functions used to
describe the geometry to approximate the physical response in an
isoparametric sense. Moreover, the unique k-refinement of isogeo-
metric analysis enables us to control the continuity of the basis
[28], and may facilitate the layerwise modeling of composite
laminates which needs C0 -continuity of the displacement field at
layer interfaces. The accuracy and efficiency of the isogeometric
paradigm have been demonstrated by a number of researchers in
the past years, see e.g. [29–38]. For the analysis of laminated
composite structures following the isogeometric concept to date
significantly less publications can be found, e.g. [39–45,37,38,46].
Most of these works are based on the classical lamination theory
(CLT) or the first-order shear deformation theory both belonging
to the class of ESL methods. Recently, Guo et al. [38] have proposed
an isogeometric layerwise theory in which a NURBS basis is used to
interpolate the in-plane and out-of-plane displacements indepen-
dently, and the C0 -continuity at layer interfaces can be ensured
naturally by conscious use of refinement schemes of isogeometric
analysis.
In the research reported in this paper we employed the higher
order and higher continuity properties of NURBS in the framework
of isogeometric buckling analyses of delaminated composite
structures with a clear focus on the through-thickness buckling
behaviour. Despite focussing on B-spline models to demonstrate
the performance of the introduced method we provided a complete
description of the basic principles of isogeometric analysis in terms
of NURBS modelling and kept this terminology throughout the
paper. We have demonstrated the reliability and accuracy of a
contact analysis extension of the IGA framework to eliminate phys-
ically inadmissible buckling states which may result from overlap-
ping plies. We exploited the smoothness of the buckled NURBS
geometry to eliminate convergence problems arising from non-
smooth surface discretizations of traditional finite element based
contact analysis. Although, in recent years a number of surface
smoothing techniques have been proposed for finite element based
contact models [47,48], they inevitably introduce an additional
geometry and may cause additional computational effort [49].
The advantageous use of NURBS-based isogeometric contact
analysis has been demonstrated previously in [50,51,49]. We fur-
ther exploited the unique refinement schemes of isogeometric
analysis to control the continuity properties over the ply stacking
and the laminate extension plane that allows h-refinement and
simple order elevation while keeping the necessary C0 continuity
at the ply interface in the applied layerwise approach. In Section 2
we give a brief summary about the layerwise lamina theory in the
framework of isogeometric analysis. The set of equations govern-
ing the linear buckling analysis are provided in Section 3. We fur-
ther present in this section the applied modeling approach
including the coupling of multiple patches for an appropriate
assembly of the delamination model. In Section 4 we introduce
the contact kinematics of our method and a surface-to-surface con-
tact element formulation. We provide a conceptual description of
the contact analysis and show the complete buckling analysis pro-
cedure in algorithmic form. Various examples addressing accuracy,
reliability and convergence behavior of the analysis are presented
in Section 5. We systematically analyse the influence of the
location and the size of single and multiple delaminations. The pro-
posed contact enriched isogeometric buckling analysis approach is
summarized and conclusions given in Section 6.
2. Isogeometric layerwise theory
We start with a brief summary of the isogeometric analysis
focusing on the use of B-spline and NURBS as appropriate basis
functions in composite laminate modeling. We further summarize
the basic concept of the layerwise theory pursued in this contribu-
tion and provide the set of governing equations which is used in
the following to formulate the variational formulation of the
buckling analysis.
2.1. B-spline & NURBS basis functions
Isogeometric analysis follows the principles of the isoparamet-
ric paradigm, as known from classical finite elements, based on B-
splines or non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) which are the
basis of todays CAD tools [52,53]. Using the same basis functions
for the interpolation of the geometric and the physical model aims
for a significant reduction of the modeling effort in numerical sim-
ulation of CAD-based models while profiting from the smoothness,
continuity and adaptivity properties of NURBS [27].
 Y. Guo et al. / Composite Structures 116 (2014) 55–66 57

In 1D, a B-spline basis of polynomial order p is defined by n
basis functions N i;p ðnÞ ði ¼ 1; . . . ; nÞ in the parameter space n. The
functions N i;p ðnÞ are specified by a knot vector
N ¼ n1 ; . . . ; nnþpþ1 ; n1 6 n2 6 . . . 6 nnþpþ1
existing of a non-decreasing sequence of coordinates ni , denoted as
knots. The functions N i;p ðnÞ are piecewise defined over p þ 1
knot-spans forming a Cp1 continuously differentiable basis and
can be constructed by the Cox-de-Boor recursion formula [54,55].
Repeated knots lower the continuity of the basis functions. A knot
multiplicity of p þ 1 for the first and last knot makes the basis inter-
polatory resulting in a B-spline patch with open knot vector, cf
Fig. 1.
A multi-variate B-spline basis of dimension three is constructed
by the tensor product N  H  Z of univariate B-spline basis func-
tions, defined by the knot vectors N ¼ fn1 ; n2 ; . . . ; nnþpþ1 g;
H ¼ fg1 ; g2 ; . . . ; gmþpþ1 g and Z ¼ ff1 ; f2 ; . . . ; flþpþ1 g [55,56]. Each
shape function is specified as
Q ijk;p ðn; g; fÞ ¼ N i;p1 ðnÞ Mj;p2 ðgÞ Lk;p3 ðfÞ
where Ni;p1 ðnÞ; Mj;p2 ðgÞ and Lk;p3 ðfÞ are 1D basis functions of polyno-
mial degree ps in each parametric direction s 2 f1; 2; 3g, respec-
tively, and where i; j and k indicate their position within the
product space.
B-spline geometries follow from a linear combination of control
points P 2 Rd , where d denotes the geometric dimension, with the
corresponding set of B-spline basis functions. The definition of a B-
spline surface for example reads,
X nonlinear distribution of displacement field through-the-thickness
xðn; gÞ ¼ Q m;p ðn; gÞ Pm
m
with m ¼ mði; jÞ and Pm 2 R2 and x the surface coordinates referred
to the global coordinate system.
Non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) are a generalization of
B-splines that allow the exact geometric representation of entities
that cannot be represented by the polynomial B-splines, such as
circles, spheres or tories. They follow from a projective transforma-
tion of B-spline entities in Rd [57,54]. The projected function
becomes rational with considering the projection height of the B-
spline geometry, thus introducing weights wi at each control point
Pi as form parameters that control the NURBS shape:
wi Ni;p ðnÞ
Ri;p ðnÞ ¼ Pn
k¼1 wk N k;p ðnÞ
Multi-variate NURBS basis functions are constructed in analogy to
(2) by a d-dimensional tensor product. The definition of NURBS
geometries, again, follow from a linear combination of the d-dimen-
sional control points with the respective basis functions. The defini-
tion of a NURBS solid for example reads,
X
xðn; g; fÞ ¼ Rm;p ðn; g; fÞ Pm
m
with m ¼ mði; j; kÞ and Pm 2 R3 and
wijk Ni;p ðnÞ M j;p2 ðgÞ Lk;p3 ðfÞ
2.2. Kinematics – layerwise theory
The layerwise theory considers separate stiffness contributions
for each layer, thus avoiding a homogenization of the elasticity
ð1Þ
properties through the composite’s thickness. Correspondingly,
due to the balance of linear momentum and continuity of the
traction field in multilayered composite, the functions describing
the displacement field should be C0 -continuous at the interface
between plies of different fiber angle orientation. More detailed
description of isogeometric layerwise theory can be found in Sec-
tion 3.2 of Ref. [38]. We focus on through-the-thickness modelling
of composite laminates using NURBS basis functions, as illustrated
in Fig. 2. With the continuity properties of B-splines, presented in
Section 2.1, Cpk1 continuity between adjacent knot-span ele-
ments can be enforced by k-fold knot repetition [29]. For example,
in Fig. 2, the C0 continuity at ply interfaces can be easily facilitated
by inserting knots p  1 times. To improve the quality of the phys-
ical approximation, however, one may further wish to enrich the
basis using an arbitrary refinement technique ply-wise. As an
ð2Þ example, the basis functions within ðm þ 1Þth layer are enriched
with one more knot insertion compared to the ðmÞth layer.
Remark 1. It should be noted that the present isogeometric
layerwise model is in the absence of any kinematical assumptions
on the layer interfaces. The Cpk1 continuity condition can be
naturally facilitated by applying the h- and p-refinement schemes
in the correct sequence. In addition, the higher order basis
functions used through-the-thickness direction will result in a
ð3Þ as illustrated in Fig. 2 which is convenient for the thick laminates,
however, most of the industry relevant laminated composite
structures are relatively thin, which indicates that linear
through-thickness basis functions are sufficient for an accurate
prediction of the structural responses.
2.3. Constitutive equations
Throughout this paper we focus on the through-thickness buck-
ling characteristics of laminated composites. In this subsection we
introduce the notation used, a detailed description of the theory of
laminated composite materials can be found in e.g. [10,58]. A state
of plane strain is chosen to adequately represent the analysed
ð4Þ
cross-sectional plate models. The constitutive equations of the
laminate structures therefore reduce to:
0 1 0 10 1
ex Q 11 Q 13 0 rx
B C B CB C
@ ez A ¼ @ Q 31 Q 33 0 A@ rz A ð7Þ
cxz 0 0 Q 55 sxz
where the bar denotes the transformed state of a quantity, defined
ð5Þ in layer m, with respect to the global coordinate system [58,10]. The
z
(n) U(n)
...

Rm;p ðn; g; fÞ ¼ Pn Pn Pn 1 ð6Þ

^ N^i;p ðnÞ M^j;p ðgÞ Lk;p
^ w^i^jk ^ ðfÞ
...

^i¼1 ^j¼1 k¼1 1 2 3

(m+1) U(m+1)
h
1.0 N 1,3 N 7,3 (m) U(m)
N 2,3 N 3,3 N 4,3 N 5,3 N 6,3
0.5
...
...

0.0
(1) U(1)
0,0,0,0 1 2 3 4,4,4,4
x
Fig. 1. 1D cubic B-spline shape functions N i;3 ði ¼ 1; . . . ; 7Þ across an open knot
vector of four knot-span-elements. Fig. 2. Schematic illustration of isogeometric layerwise kinematics.
58 Y. Guo et al. / Composite Structures 116 (2014) 55–66

quantities Q ij denote the reduced compliance coefficients for the 3.1.2. Governing algebraic equations
state of plane strain, defined as: Substitution of (12)–(14) into the potential (9), element-wise
integration and assembly of the element contributions provided
Si3 Sj3
Q ij ¼ Sij  ; i; j ¼ 1; 3; 5 ð8Þ the governing algebraic system of the equations
S33
1
where Sij denotes the compliance coefficients with respect to the P ¼ UTs ðK  KG Þ Us ð15Þ
2
axes of material symmetry. It is important to highlight that the com-
pliance tensor, introduced in Eq. (7), is a function of the throughout with Us ¼ ½U1 ; U3 ; K the linear-elastic stiffness matrix of the system
thickness coordinate z, and that each ply within the laminate is con- and
Z 
sidered to be orthotropic.
KG ¼ Ane e ð t x0 NT;x1 N;x1 dx3 ð16Þ
x3 e
3. Isogeometric buckling analysis
representing the assembly of the geometric element stiffness
In the following we provide the fundamental set of equations matrices due to the applied membrane forces. From the stationary
governing the linear buckling analysis. Considering multiple condition dP ¼ 0 follows the eigenvalue problem
patches, as applied for the delamination model, requires a coupling ðK  k KG Þ Us ¼ 0 ð17Þ
concept that is introduced at the end of this section.
with the critical load factor k determined as the eigenvalue of small-
est magnitude [59,10].
3.1. Linear buckling analysis

3.2. Multi patch modeling

Starting from the total potential energy of the 2D laminate
model under transverse loading the equation governing the buck-
Using multiple patches in isogeometric analysis allows us to
ling analysis can be formulated as
model the delaminated domains separately and independently.
P ¼ U int  U ext ð9Þ In the following we applied the strong coupling concept introduced
with in [29] for isogeometric multi-patch models with respect to the
Z multi-layer modeling in the framework of the delamination analy-
1 sis of composite laminates. Exemplarily, the two patches shown in
U int ¼  : r dX ð10Þ
2 X Fig. 3 were chosen to illustrate the basic principles of the coupling
representing the strain energy of the deformed system domain X concept applying different basis functions through the thickness of
where ðuÞð¼ 12 ðruT þ ruÞÞ denotes the linear strain tensor, r the a laminate. The proposed concept even allows the coupling of
stress tensor and where u ¼ ½u1 ; u3  2 R2 is the displacement field. incompatible patches. To the left of Fig. 3 a layerwise model of
The potential of the external forces, restricted to a 1D in-plane cubic order is shown. Each of the two layers was modeled with a
loading across and along the boundary domain C as considered in single knot-span element with a C0 -continuous interface in
this paper is between, resulting in seven control points across the thickness
direction of the composite laminate. To the right an equivalent
Z  2
1 du3 single layer (ESL) model consisting of a single element of same
U ext ¼ tx0 dC ð11Þ
2 Ct dx polynomial order is chosen.
The sets of control points PðiÞ ði ¼ 1; 2Þ were split into subsets
The variable t x0 denotes the prescribed membrane force and u3 ðiÞ
Pf and PðiÞn for further considerations. The subscripts f and n denote
represents the transverse displacement. the interface domain Xf and the non-interface domain Xn , respec-
tively, whereas the superscripts identify the different models. The
3.1.1. NURBS discretization knot vector N1 was obtained from N2 by knot insertion. The rela-
We assumed a state of plane strain in all of our computations ð1Þ
tionship between the subsets of control points Pf and Pf along
ð2Þ

throughout this paper. Based on the previous definition of the the coupling interface of the two patches was established by the
NURBS Ansatz the displacement field was approximated as extension parameter Tf which interpolates the additional control
ð1Þ ð2Þ
X
N points of Pf from the basis set of control points Pf :
ui ¼ Rm;p ðn; gÞ U mðiÞ ¼ NT ðn; gÞUðiÞ i ¼ 1; 3 ð12Þ ð1Þ ð2Þ
m¼1 Pf ¼ Tf Pf ; ð18Þ
with U mðiÞ 2 R2 denoting the introduced degrees of freedom in Eq. (18) maintains the C0 -continuity of the geometry across the
terms of unknown displacements of the control points and interface between the two patches. Analogously, the relation of
N ¼ ½Rm;p ðn; gÞ denoting the applied NURBS Ansatz according to the displacements introduced at the control points of each domain
(6). For the strain tensor in Voigt notation follows is established.
^ ¼ BT ðn; gÞ U ð13Þ Uf
ð1Þ ð2Þ
¼ Tf Uf : ð19Þ
where Bðn; gÞ is the strain–displacement matrix [59] assembling the The governing linear system of equations of each patch was split
displacement derivatives with respect to the global coordinates according to the degrees of freedom introduced at the correspond-
ðx1 ; x3 Þ and U ¼ ½U1 ; U3 . ing control points of the subdomain Xf and Xn ,
The change of u3 with respect to the global coordinate x1 fol- 0 1
ðiÞ ðiÞ ! ðiÞ
!
lows by applying the chain rule with respect to the coordinate n Knn Knf UnðiÞ fn
of the NURBS parameter space:
@ A ¼ ; i ¼ 1; 2 ð20Þ
ðiÞ ðiÞ ðiÞ ðiÞ
Kfn Kff Uf ff
du3 X N
d Rk;p ðn; gÞ dn
¼ U kð3Þ ¼ NT;x1 U3 ð14Þ Using (19) in (20), the coupled system of equations could be written
dx k¼1
dn dx1
in the form
 Y. Guo et al. / Composite Structures 116 (2014) 55–66 59

Fig. 3. Multi-patch connection: distribution of the control points and applied basis functions over the laminate thickness, defined by the knot spans N1 ; N2 .

0 10 1 0 1
ð1Þ
Kð1Þ
nn Knf Tf 0 Unð1Þ
ð1Þ
fn states accurately. We propose a suitable solution strategy and
B CB
B T ð1Þ C B ð2Þ C B T ð1Þ C finally provide a proof-of-concept.
C @ Uf C B
ð1Þ ð2Þ ð2Þ ð2Þ C
B Tf Kfn TTf Kff Tf þ Kff Kfn A ¼ @ Tf f f þ f f A
@ A
ð2Þ
0 Knf Kð2Þ
nn Unð2Þ ð2Þ
fn 4.1. Contact kinematics

ð21Þ
ð1Þ
The unknown variables Uf
were condensed out and could be
recovered using Eq. (19) [29].
3.3. Delamination model
The material properties across a laminate’s thickness direction
are not continuous. Continuity in the transverse stress distribution
therefore requires C0 -continuity in the displacements at the ply
interface to ensure a force equilibrium. The classical modeling
approach of delamination enriches the displacement field with a
Heaviside function to allow discontinuities at the ply interface
[21,22,60]. In the isogeometric framework, the discontinuity con-
dition can be simply ensured by knot repetition, cf Fig. 3.
The two fundamental refinement operations for spline bases,
knot insertion and order elevation, correspond to the classical h-
and p-refinement of the finite element method [27]. In addition,
k-refinement allows an inter-element continuity preserving refine-
ment strategy [28]. The k-refinement strategy favorably combines
p-refinement followed by h-refinement and thus ensures a Cp1
continuity among the knot-span elements of a patch. We followed
the concept of k-refinement [28] throughout this paper to provide
a highest level of continuity for all computational models.
A schematic representation of a two layer laminate of cubic
order with pre-existing delamination is shown in Fig. 4. The lami-
nated and delaminated regions are modeled as separate patches
and connected according to Section 3.2.
4. Contact model enriched delamination analysis
In the following section we consider the solution of the eigen-
value problem, formulated in Section 3.1, for the determination
of the critical buckling load of composite laminate structures. We
introduce a contact model to eliminate inadmissible buckling
The buckling eigenvalue problem (17) is unconstrained in the
sense that the upper and lower delaminated layers can move in
the lateral direction independently. As a consequence, physically
inadmissible buckling modes may appear that include penetration
between the upper and lower delaminated layers. This phenome-
non is illustrated in Fig. 5 where it can be seen that local buckling
has induced a partial penetration of the upper ply into the lower
region.
In the following we propose a contact model to ‘‘repair’’
stepwise inadmissible buckling modes. In general, a contact search
algorithm is required to determine which parts of the delaminated
regions are in contact. In the following, we model all delaminated
regions with a single patch which makes an expensive global con-
tact search superfluous and restricts any contact search locally to
the patch level.
Let xðaÞ ða ¼ 1; 2Þ denote the position of a material point in XðaÞ
and let CðaÞ denote the boundary of XðaÞ , specifically, the opposite
boundaries of the delaminated regions as illustrated in Fig. 6. We
assume the lower and upper delamination domains to be convex
regions or at least locally convex regions, such that for any given
point xð2Þ 2 Cð2Þ , there exists a unique point xð1Þ 2 Cð1Þ that satisfies
the minimum distance condition
dðnÞ ¼ min kxð2Þ  xð1Þ ðnÞk ð22Þ
xð1Þ 2 Cð1Þ
where n is the coordinate of the corresponding NURBS parameter
space N that is, for convenience, chosen in the interval ½0; 1. The
^ indicates the closest projection point, thus satisfying (22).
point x
The determination of x ^ requires the inverse mapping nðxÞ of the
geometry Ansatz satisfying the condition for a minimum of the
distance function [61]
xð2Þ  x
^ð1Þ ðnÞ
^ð1Þ ðnÞ ¼ nð1Þ  x
x ^ð1Þ
; ðnÞ ¼ 0 ð23Þ
kx  x
ð2Þ ^ð1Þ ðnÞk ;

Fig. 4. Strong coupled four patch delamination model.

60 Y. Guo et al. / Composite Structures 116 (2014) 55–66

The geometry and the variation of Eq. (27) is discretized with the
NURBS-Ansatz (5), introduced in Section 3.1.1. The integral in
Eq. (27) is evaluated at a set of Gaussian quadrature points which
Fig. 5. Inadmissible buckling mode of penetrating plies. are also used for the calculation of closest projection points.
Through linearization, the contact stiffness can be written as:
" #
Kð11Þ
c Kð12Þ
c
Kc ¼ ; ð28Þ
Kcð21Þ Kcð22Þ
in which KðabÞ
c ; ða; b ¼ 1; 2Þ, are the simplified components from Ref.
[49], and its formulation in element level is written as:
ðabÞ
X
KcðmnÞ ¼ wi Jð2Þ ðngi ÞRðaÞ ðbÞ
m ðnai ÞRn ðnbi Þ½I ð29Þ
ð2Þ
i2 G

Fig. 6. The closest point projection. in which a; b and m; n denote the indices of the contact surfaces
and the basis functions, respectively. wi is the weights of Gaussian
quadrature, J ð2Þ ðngi Þ is the Jacobian of the boundary Cð2Þ and can
A Newton iteration is applied to determine the parametric coordi- ðaÞ
be calculated as Jð2Þ ¼ ds =dn ¼ dxð2Þ =dn . Rm
ð2Þ
nate n such that Eq. (22) is satisfied, with i indicating the current and RðbÞ
n are the
iteration step. Starting from the ith iteration step we determine NURBS basis functions corresponding to the contact surfaces CðaÞ
the new value of n with and CðbÞ . The parameter ngi corresponds to the ith Gaussian quadra-
 ð1Þ 
xð1Þ ð2Þ ture points in the set Gð2Þ , and the parameters nai and nbi correspond
; ðni Þ  x ðni Þ  x
niþ1 ¼ ni   2 ; ð24Þ to either the set of closest projection points npi , when a; b ¼ 1, or
 ð1Þ 
xð1Þ ð1Þ ð2Þ
;; ðni Þ  ½x ðni Þ  x  þ x; ðni Þ Gaussian quadrature points ngi , when a; b ¼ 2. In addition, I is the
2  2 Identity matrix.
where xð1Þ ð1Þ
; ðnÞ and x;; ðnÞ signify the first and second derivative of x
ð1Þ

with respect to the parametric coordinate n. With knowledge of x ^ ðnÞ

the relative position of the lower and upper boundaries can be
characterized by the gap function
 
g n ¼ xð2Þ  x
^ð1Þ ðnÞ  nð1Þ
^ð1Þ on Cð1Þ .
in which nð1Þ is the outward pointing unit normal at x
Using the value of g n the contact situation can be uniquely
characterized [62]. For g n > 0 the boundaries are separated,
whereas g n < 0 indicates penetration of the domains. For g n ¼ 0
perfect contact exists between Cð1Þ and Cð2Þ .
Remark 2. The contact formulation is significantly simplified by
the fact that tangential contact is not considered for the presented
buckling analysis thus omitting any complicated friction model. All
constituents of the following formulation therefore refer to the
normal contact of the delaminated plies.
4.2. Surface-to-surface contact element formulation
We follow a master–slave concept to account for the non-
symmetry of the gap function, where Cð1Þ is chosen as the master
and Cð2Þ the slave surface of a surface-to-surface contact element
comprising contact conditions at a set of Gaussian quadrature
points and corresponding projection points along the contact
boundary. The Gaussian quadrature points are denoted Gð2Þ , as they
are located on the boundary Cð2Þ . Based on a penalty formulation,
the potential (9) is extended by a penalty energy term. The variation
of this contact potential energy term is written as
Z
d Pc ¼  g n dg n ds
Cc
Remark 3. In [25,15] it is shown how the penetration of the
inadmissible buckling states can be eliminated by adding fictitious
springs between the overlapping nodes. This approach works well
ð25Þ but is limited to the case of matching nodes along the two
delaminated layers. Correspondingly, the control points of the
NURBS modeled contact domains can be employed in the isogeo-
metric analysis approach presented here, if a matching set of
control points can be found for both domains. In general, this is not
the case and thus requires a more sophisticated approach. An
example of non-matching control points between the delaminated
laminas is shown in Fig. 7.
4.3. Analysis concept
We propose a stepwise procedure, illustrated in Fig. 8, to
remove iteratively the domain overlap of inadmissible buckling
states. The input data of the shown flowchart is a buckling shape
with overlapping plies, an inadmissible state that is found from a
segment-to-segment contact search. The iteration loop comprised
the following steps:
1. In a first step we determined the maximum overlap of the plies
for the given buckling mode and check against a given threshold
l which controls the desired accuracy of the enforced contact
constraint.
2. For an overlap larger than l we introduced a penalty constraint
for each Gauss point along the delaminated boundary of the
slave domain Cð2Þ that does not satisfy the relation g n > 0 to
close the gap function at xð2Þ ðngi Þ. The stiffness matrix was
ð26Þ
updated with the penalty contribution.

where  denotes the penalty factor, Cc ¼ Cð1Þ \ Cð2Þ denotes the

contact boundary, and ds denotes the length of the delamination
boundary Cð2Þ . The variation of the gap function includes the varia-
tion of (22) and simplifies due to the orthogonality properties of g n
to the variation of its constituents. Substitution of (22) into (26)
gives
Z
 ð2Þ   
d Pc ¼  x x ^ð1Þ ðnÞ  dxð2Þ  dxð1Þ ds ð27Þ
Cc
Fig. 7. Overlapping NURBS-domain edges with non-matching control points.
 Y. Guo et al. / Composite Structures 116 (2014) 55–66
Input
Find Max. Overlap
Yes
Max. Overlap < μ Stop
No
Penalization
Solve (K - λKG ) Us = 0
Yes
Sign of buckling
mode changed?
Flip Over
No
New Update
Fig. 8. Iterative contact extended analysis concept for inadmissible buckling states.
3. The general eigenvalue problem (17) was solved for the eigen-
states with eigenvalue of smallest magnitude using a subspace
eigenvalue solver.
4. We check the updated eigenstate for a change in the sign and
flip over if necessary by scaling with ð1Þ.
5. We continue the loop until the stopping criteria, formulated in
Step 1, is satisfied.
Remark 4. The iterative procedure of the proposed analysis con-
cept for inadmissible states is necessary for two reasons. First, a
direct constraining of the original buckling eigenvalue analysis is
not possible since a possible overlap and the corresponding overlap
location are a priory unknown. Second, a single step solution does
not prevent from more inadmissible overlap configurations.
5. Numerical examples
The performance of the proposed isogeometric analysis contact
approach with regard to reliability, accuracy and numerical effort
is analyzed in the following for variable model parameters. We
show the effects of stacking sequences of the laminates and the
influence of different values of slenderness. We further dissect
the influence of the position and length of the delamination zone.
Throughout the following numerical analyses we demonstrate
our tests with a two layer laminate plate structure with pre-
existing delamination at the ply interface and clamped essential
boundary conditions. The geometry of the structure and its delam-
ination zone, the material parameters and the applied loading is
depicted in Fig. 9. A state of plane strain with respect to the x–z
plane is assumed for all derived model configurations. We intro-
duce two geometric parameters, normalized to the total plate
length L: A form parameter a is defined as the ratio of the delam-
ination length with respect to the plate length L. A location factor b
denotes the location of the delamination factor with respect to the
length L. A fixed thickness was chosen for all layers of the
laminated composite structure.
5.1. Convergence study and contact demonstration
The convergence study of a ½0 =0  lay-up laminate is carried out
with different discretization levels. The orthotropic material prop-
erties are:
61
z α·L
90°
N N h
0°
β·L x
L
Fig. 9. Delamination model of a two layer composite plate.
Ex ¼ 1:81  102 GPa Gxz ¼ Gyz ¼ Gxy ¼ 7:17 GPa
Ez ¼ 1:03  101 GPa mxz ¼ myz ¼ 0:28
The geometric model has a slenderness S ¼ L=h ¼ 10 and delamina-
tion zone parameters a ¼ 0:4 and b ¼ 0:5. At first, a h-refinement
study followed by a p-refinement study is shown to reveal the basic
convergence properties of the proposed analysis approach. For the
h-refinement study, each layer of the laminated composite is mod-
eled with cubic NURBS in both the in-plane and through-thickness
directions. The number of elements through the thickness of each
single ply varies from 1 to 8 such that a unit aspect ratio for each
element is preserved. A monotonic convergence behavior is shown
in Fig. 10. An approximation for the exact reference solution was
found from an extrapolation based on the results of the three most
refined models [63].
For the p study, we keep the number of elements through the
thickness of each layer at 4, and uniformly increased the degrees
of basis from p; q ¼ 2 to p; q ¼ 6 in both directions. The results
are listed in the Table 1, where N is the critical buckling load and
D is the relative error in percent with respect to the reference solu-
tion extrapolated from the h-refinements study. Again a monotonic
behavior is observed.
The effectiveness of the proposed contact treatment will be
illustrated in the following. The stacking sequence of the laminate
is changed to ½0 =90 . The geometric parameters and the delami-
nation zone parameters of the model are kept the same as in the
previous example.
The buckling analysis revealed the first buckling mode to be
admissible and the second buckling mode to be inadmissible with
penetrating plies for which a contact analysis was performed. The
history of the stepwise contact analysis starting from the initial
inadmissible state to the final, accepted buckling state is illustrated
in Fig. 11.
A penalty value of ð ¼ 1010 Þ was found to be sufficient for con-
vergence and this was kept constant throughout the iteration pro-
cedure. The final mode shape with contact constraints is presented
in Fig. 11(d). The overlap region at the various iteration steps,
shown in red, decreases with an increasing number of iterations
1.00
Nexact- N
( )
Nexact ×100 [%]
rel. error [%]
error in buckling load
0.10
0.01 0.10 1.00
h
Fig. 10. Convergence of the critical buckling load for a ½0 =0  laminate.
62 Y. Guo et al. / Composite Structures 116 (2014) 55–66

Table 1
Convergence of the buckling load for p-refinement of a ½0 =0  laminate, providing
buckling loads and relative error.

p; q ¼ 2 p; q ¼ 3 p; q ¼ 4 p; q ¼ 5 p; q ¼ 6 Exact

N ½102  12.414 12.389 12.378 12.373 12.369 12.359

D ½% 0.445 0.243 0.154 0.113 0.081 –

until the final admissible buckling state has converged with a
buckling load of 7:733  102 N.
The free scalability of the eigenvectors allows us to consider
both eigenmodes, u and u as valid solutions. Nevertheless, for
local buckling modes scaling with 1 may result in another, or
even new, overlap situation as depicted in Fig. 12, in which the
stacking sequence of the laminate is ½0 =90  and the geometric
and delamination zone parameters of the model are:
S ¼ L=h ¼ 10; a ¼ 0:5 and b ¼ 0:5. As a consequence the flip-over
scaled mode shape must be considered in the buckling analysis
as a separate solution that possibly requires a contact enriched
analysis as proposed in this paper. The third buckling mode shown
in Fig. 12 has already been identified as an inadmissable mode
without negative scaling. A small overlap at the middle of the
delamination zone was noticed, and the negative counterpart
strongly illustrates the overlap problem for a flip-over situation.
The buckling mode shapes after the contact analysis are shown
in Fig. 13. The corresponding buckling loads are 6:497  102 N
and 16:062  102 N, respectively. The lower of the two buckling
load and corresponding mode shape was considered to be the
relevant solution.
5.2. Midplane delamination of a ½0 =0  laminate
The following benchmark model is used in several publications
as a test case for the buckling analysis of laminate composites pro-
viding reference solutions of similar quality [17,20,22,26], and we
Fig. 13. Final result for the third buckling mode after necessary overlap correction
from flip over.
chose the same example to demonstrate the accuracy of the pro-
posed contact extended buckling analysis and compare our solu-
tion to the results reported in the literature. The geometry, the
material properties and loading conditions of the current example
correspond to the model depicted in Fig. 9. The stacking sequence
of the laminate was chosen as ½0 =0 .
In a first test we analysed the influence of the delamination
length, expressed by the form parameter a, on the buckling load
of the first buckling mode. The model had a length-to-thickness
ratio of S ¼ L=h ¼ 400 and a location factor of b ¼ 0:5. The presented
normalized buckling loads were obtained by dividing the critical
buckling loads of the delaminated plate with N cr , the buckling load
of the laminated composite structure without delamination.
Our solution compared to the reference solutions found in
[17,20,22,26] is shown in Table 2. A very good overall agreement
of the buckling loads was observed for an increasing value of a.
Most of the buckling modes were global symmetric with a relative
deviation from our solution of below  0:3%. Except for a ¼ 0:4
where we obtained an anti-symmetric buckling mode. For this case
the solution obtained in Chen[20] is a global symmetric one and
seems to be an outlier result with a relative deviation of above
1.1%. This is attributed to the fact that symmetry assumptions in
the axial direction were made in [20], thus excluding anti-
symmetric modes.

Fig. 11. History of the contact extended buckling analysis of the second buckling mode. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is
referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 12. Overlap situation from a flip over of a local buckling mode by scaling with 1.
 Y. Guo et al. / Composite Structures 116 (2014) 55–66 63

Table 2
Comparison of normalized buckling loads for an increasing form parameter a: present solution, reference values and relative deviation D½%.

a Simitses [18] D ½% Chen [20] D ½% Lee [22] D ½% Hu [26] D ½% Present
0.1 0.9999 0.00 0.9999 0.00 0.9999 0.00 - - 0.9999
0.2 0.9956 0.02 0.9956 0.02 0.9956 0.02 - - 0.9954
0.3 0.9638 0.07 0.9638 0.07 0.9639 0.08 0.9606 0.26 0.9631
0.4 0.8481 0.15 0.8561 1.10 0.8482 0.17 0.8445 0.27 0.8468
0.5 0.6896 0.29 0.6896 0.29 0.6898 0.32 0.6860 0.23 0.6876
0.6 0.5411 0.26 0.5411 0.26 0.5413 0.30 0.5384 0.24 0.5397
0.7 0.4310 0.23 0.4310 0.23 0.4311 0.26 0.4288 0.28 0.4300

In a second test we varied the values of a and computed the

buckling loads for global symmetric, anti-symmetric and local

non-dimensional buckling load (N/Ncr )

symmetric buckling modes. The length-to-thickness ratio for this 1.0
test was set to S ¼ L=h ¼ 10. Our results were compared to a refer-
ence solution provided by Jaehong [22] and are shown in Fig. 14, in 0.8
which a displacement-based one-dimensional finite element
model based on Reddy’s layerwise plate theory is used. The results
0.6
of the proposed isogeometric buckling analysis agreed very well
with the reference solution. No difference can be observed for
the global symmetric and anti-symmetric modes virtually. The 0.4 Ref. α = 0.2 Ref. α = 0.6
IGA solution of the local symmetric case deviated only insignifi- IGA α = 0.2 IGA α = 0.6
cantly from the reference curve showing a slightly smoother curve. 0.2 Ref. α = 0.4 IGA α = 0.3
The slight deviation can be explained by the different kinematic IGA α = 0.4 IGA α = 0.5
models been used for this example. In Jaehong [22], the out-
of-plane displacement u3 is assumed to correspond to the mid- 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
surface displacement, which means no relative displacement exists delamination positon (β)
through the thickness of a laminate. In contrast, in our isogeomet- Fig. 15. Influence of the delamination zone position on the buckling load for a
ric layerwise model, both the in-plane and out-of-plane displace- ½0 =0  laminate.
ment components are interpolated using NURBS basis functions,
hence allowing for the change of the displacements through the
thickness direction.
non-dimensional buckling load (N/Ncr )

5.3. Influence of the axial location of delamination 1.0

The following reveals the influence of the axial location of the 0.8
delamination, expressed by the location factor b, on the first buck-
ling mode and corresponding buckling load. In Figs. 15 and 16, 0.6
respectively, we show results for both stacking configurations,
the ½0 =0  and ½0 =90  laminates. In addition, in Fig. 15, the
0.4
reference results from Jaehong [22] are shown. The depicted curves
α = 0.2
represent different dimensions of the delamination zone, α = 0.3
expressed by the form factor a. The length-to-thickness ratio 0.2 α = 0.4
α = 0.5
S ¼ L=h for this analysis was set to S ¼ 10. α = 0.6

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9

delamination positon ( β)

Fig. 16. Influence of the delamination zone position on the buckling load for a
Ref. Global Symmetric
2.0 IGA Global Symmetric
½0 =90  laminate.
non-dimensional buckling load (N/Ncr)

Ref. Anti-Symmetric
IGA Anti-Symmetric
Ref. Local Symmetric
1.5 IGA Local Symmetric With a value b ¼ 0:5, indicating the delamination zone in the
center of the plate, the symmetry of the model and location of
the delamination zone clearly dominates the results with a
1.0 maximum value of the buckling load, cf Fig. 15. With increasing
delamination length a the peak value smoothes out and even drops
down for the IGA solution at a ¼ 0:6 indicating the severe loss of
Global Symm. stiffness as consequence of the large delamination zone.
0.5
Anti-Symm.
For the short delamination length models, a ¼ 0:2 and a ¼ 0:3,
respectively, we observe an increased stiffening in the case where
Local Symm.
the delamination center moves towards the ends of the plate. This
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 behavior is reducible to the clamped boundary conditions applied
delamination length (α) at the ends of the plate and becomes more obvious for the smaller
delamination zones. For longer delamination zones, e.g. a ¼ 0:5
Fig. 14. Buckling loads for an increasing delamination length. and a ¼ 0:6, the buckling loads are less sensitive to the
64 Y. Guo et al. / Composite Structures 116 (2014) 55–66

delamination locations, and stay almost unchanged for b between located at the boundary of the structure. This stiff boundary phe-
0.45 and 0.55. nomenon was more evident when the delamination length
The variation of a and b for the ½0 =90  laminate composite are increased. For a ¼ 0:4 the buckling load of the second mode
depicted in Fig. 16. The buckling load showed significant less sen- jumped down followed by a monotonic increase when relocating
sitivity to the location of the delamination and the size of the the center of the delamination zone towards the center of the
delamination zone, compared to the ½0 =0  stacking results of structure. With increasing length of the delamination zone, cf
Fig. 15. Analogously, increasing stiffness of the delaminated plate a ¼ 0:6, the curves for the second mode flatten, i.e. the buckling
towards the ends was observed. load became less sensitive with respect to location of the delami-
nation zone. The third buckling mode showed reverse behavior.
5.4. Influence of the contact constraints The buckling load decreased for a relocation of the buckling zone
towards the center of the structure. However, an analogous
We use the following example to show the influence of the decreasing sensitivity of the buckling load with increasing
introduced contact constraints on the results of the buckling delamination size was observed as noticed already for the second
analysis. We considered the first three buckling modes and buckling mode.
corresponding loads of the ½0 =90  laminated composite model It is worth noting that at the center positions the initially lower
introduced earlier. The results for a ¼ 0:4 and a ¼ 0:6, respectively, buckling load of the second buckling mode for a ¼ 0:6 changed to a
with varying location factor b are shown in Figs. 17 and 18. load higher than the load of the third mode after repair. Obviously
The first buckling mode was found to be uncritical for both the second and third buckling state changed significantly in both,
cases, a ¼ 0:4 and 0.6, since no overlap appeared. We concentrated buckling mode and buckling load.
on the second and third buckling mode which were both inadmis-
sible due to an overlap in the initial analysis step. As demonstrated 5.5. A model with two delaminations
before, the stepwise introduced constraints significantly influ-
enced the final mode shape and corresponding buckling load. We will now demonstrate the applicability and extensibility of
For the second and third buckling mode of both cases (a ¼ 0:4 our proposed approach for two or more delamination zones. We
and a ¼ 0:6), the buckling loads after contact repair increased evi- used a model of a random short-fiber composite structure with
dently compared to the original inadmissible states. In both cases two delaminations near to the surface. The problem was first
we observed the highest buckling load for the delamination zone analysed by Wang [64]. The geometric parameters and the delam-
ination parameters are shown in Fig. 19. The length-to-thickness
ratio was set to S ¼ L=h ¼ 16, and the center of each delamination
zone was located in the middle of the structure (b ¼ 0:5). The two
non-dimensional buckling load (N/Ncr)

2.5
delamination cracks were located symmetrically to the middle sur-
face of the structure with a deepness parameter t ¼ 0:25h. The
2.0
orthotropic material properties of the composite were:
Ex ¼ 2:29  106 psi Gxz ¼ Gyz ¼ Gxy ¼ 0:36  106 psi
1.5
Ez ¼ 1:2  106 psi mxz ¼ myz ¼ 0:22
1.0 In the isogeometric layerwise approach, the above model can be
1st
2nd modeled as a four layered laminate with equivalent material
0.5 3rd properties for each layer. Two buckling modes were considered in
2nd Cont.
3rd Cont.
this example, a mixed mode combining global and local buckling
and a local buckling mode, which were normalized with the critical
0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 buckling load (Ncr ) of an undelaminated composite. The two buck-
delamination positon (β) ling modes obtained with the isogeometric model were plotted
against the delamination length parameter a, and compared to
Fig. 17. Influence of the contact constraints on the buckling load of a ½0 =90 
laminate composite with a ¼ 0:4. the reference solutions provided by Wang [64], cf Fig. 20. In this fig-
ure, the red points represent the mixed buckling modes and the
blue points refer to the local buckling modes. Most of the mixed
buckling modes are inadmissible buckling states as depicted in
non-dimensional buckling load (N/Ncr )

Fig. 20. Thus, a contact treatment was added to repair the overlap
3.0 of the above modes. The normalized repaired buckling load values
of the mixed modes are plotted in green. Both the mixed mode
2.5 and local buckling mode of the isogeometric model agreed very well
with the reference solutions. The repaired buckling loads of the
2.0 mixed modes were slightly lower than the local buckling modes.
This seemed to be reasonable because the repaired buckling modes
1.5 were locally dominant with only one buckle layer while the local
1st buckling modes have two buckle layers.
1.0
2nd
3rd z
0.5 2nd Cont. α·L
3rd Cont. t
N N h
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 t
β·L x
delamination positon ( β)
L
Fig. 18. Influence of the contact constraints on the buckling load of a ½0 =90 
laminate composite with a ¼ 0:6. Fig. 19. Two symmetrically located delaminations through the thickness.
 Y. Guo et al. / Composite Structures 116 (2014) 55–66
Ref-mixed mode
2.0 Ref-local buckling
IGA-mixed mode
non-dimensional buckling load (N/Ncr)
IGA-mixed mode
after repair
1.5
IGA-local buckling
local buckling
1.0
mixed mode
after repair
mixed mode
0.5
0 shell analysis (VAPAS) using the generalized unified formulation (GUF). Mech
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
delamination length (α)
Fig. 20. Normalized buckling loads vs delamination length for a random short-fiber
composite with two delamination cracks.
6. Conclusion
In this article we addressed the buckling of laminated compos-
ite plate-like structures with pre-existing delamination zones in
the framework of isogeometric analysis. The particular focus of
the presented analysis concept was the repair of physically inad-
missible buckling states with overlapping plies concentrating the
developed procedure and the numerical studies on the through-
thickness behavior of the relevant buckling states with smallest
buckling load. We presented a multi-patch coupled layerwise
approach that is enriched by additional stiffness contributions con-
sidering the normal contact force of the overlap domain. In a step-
wise procedure we demonstrated the ply overlap reduction
towards physically admissible buckling modes.
Using several numerical examples we revealed the reliability
and accuracy of the proposed procedure. A refinement study
showed monotonic convergence of the buckling load for uniform
h-refinement and uniform p-refinement of the contact enriched
model. We demonstrated the influence of the free scalability of
the inadmissible buckling modes from the eigenvalue analysis on
the finally repaired buckling state and corresponding buckling
load. We further showed the decrease of the buckling load for
increasing delamination and compared our results to finite ele-
ment approximations taken from the literature, with overall high
agreement. A detailed study on the influence of size and position
of the delamination zone was done which revealed the strong
dependencies for the final buckling load and buckling shape. The
buckling load tends to increase for a relocation of the buckling
zone towards the boundary of the composite structure. For a
½0 =90  laminate, in which the material properties of the two plies
vary greatly, the penetration phenomenon was observed to be
more likely than for a ½0 =0  stacking, with large influence on
buckling load and buckling mode. Using a four layer model we
showed the applicability of our proposed method for the compos-
ites in the presence of multiple delaminations. A comparison of the
results to a reference FEM solution proved reliability and accuracy
of our method, an indispensable prerequisite for future studies of
more complex shell-like structures.
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