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Procedia Engineering 10 (2011) 15911596

ICM11

Failure analysis of curved composite panels based on first-ply and buckling failures
S. Adalia,*, Izzet U. Cagdasb,#
a b

School of Mechanical Engineering, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041, South Africa Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey

Abstract Curved panels are used extensively in several branches of engineering and in particular in marine and aerospace engineering working mostly under compressive loads. Failure of these components by buckling or excessive stress is an important design consideration. In the present study the effect of fiber orientation is studied on the failure load of a laminated curved panel subject to uniaxial compression. The failure modes are specified as first-ply failure and buckling with the failure load defined as the minimum of these two loads. The panel is taken as a symmetrically laminated angle-ply plate and the failure load is determined for different aspect ratios, panel thicknesses and boundary conditions (simply supported and clamped panels). The failure load is maximized for a set of selected stacking sequences by determining the best ply angle for each stacking sequence giving the highest failure load.

2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of ICM11
Keywords: Composite panels; buckling; first-ply failure; optimal design; curved panel.

1. Introduction Curved panels are used extensively in several branches of engineering and in particular in aerospace structures where fiber composite laminated panels are often employed as primary components working under compressive loads. Failure of these components by buckling or excessive stress is an important

_______

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +27-31-2603203; fax: +27-31-2603217. E-mail address: adali@ukzn.ac.za. # Previous address: School of Mechanical Engineering, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

1877-7058 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of ICM11 doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2011.04.266

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design consideration and these two failure modes often determine the maximum load that the panels can carry. Recent papers on the failure of curved panels include [1, 2]. The load carrying capacity of composite panels can be improved by optimization and works on the optimal design of composite panels include [3-6]. The optimization process adopted here involves the computation of the best lamination angle to maximize the compressive load the curved panel can carry without failure. The failure of the panel may be caused by loss of stability or material failure due to excessive stress and both modes of failure are taken into account in the optimization. The computational tool used is the finite element method which is employed to evaluate the buckling load and the stresses for a given stacking sequence. 2. Problem Definition The symmetrically laminated and cylindrically curved composite panel considered in this study is shown in Figure 1. It is of length a, width b and thickness H. The origin of the coordinate system xyz is located at the mid-point of the curved edge CD. The panels are constructed of eight orthotropic layers of equal thickness H k H / 8 and with fiber orientations k where k 1,..., 4 . The panels are subject to uniaxial compression in the y direction.

Figure 1. Panel geometry

The non-dimensional failure load parameter, N f , is defined below as N f N min b 2 /(H 3 E0 )

(1)

where N min is the dimensional failure load, and E 0 is a reference value having the dimension of Youngs modulus and is taken as E0 1 MPa. The failure load is defined as follows;

N min

min ( N cr , N MS )

(2)

where N cr is the dimensional critical buckling load and N MS is the dimensional first-ply failure load calculated according to the maximum strain criterion defined earlier.

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2.1. Design problem The design objective is to maximize the non-dimensional failure load N f of a symmetrically laminated curved panel of total thickness H with n layers by optimizing the ply angles i . The statement of the optimization problem is given below. Design problem: Determine the ply angles i , i 1,2,..., n of a symmetrically laminated angle-ply curved panel of total thickness H such that the failure load N f will be maximized, viz.

max N f
i

where

90

subject to

FI

1 and

N yy

Ncr

(3)

where FI denotes the failure index, N yy is the applied load and N cr is the buckling load. Stacking sequences under consideration are defined as: SSA: [ / / 90 / 0 ]s , SSB: [ SSC: [90 / 0 / SSE: [ 3. First-ply failure analysis The failure criterion is specified as (see Reddy and Pandey [7]);

/ /

]s ]s
(4)

]s , SSD: [0 / 90 /

/ 0 / 90 ]s

F1MS

F2MS

MS F11

2 1

MS F22

2 2

MS 2F12

1 2

MS F44

2 4

MS F55

2 5

MS F66

2 6

(5)

The F terms are given below. 1 1 , F2A F1A XT X C

1 YT
F2A

1 , F3A YC

1 ZT

1 , F1MS ZC

F1A

S12 A F2 S 22
MS , F66

S13 A F3 , S33

F2MS

S12 A F1 S11

S 23 A MS F3 , F44 S33

1 R
2

MS , F55

1 S
2

1 T2
S12 S13 A A F2 F3 S 22 S 23 S12 S 23 A A F1 F3 S11S33

MS F11

1 XT X C 1 YT YC

S12 S 22 S12 S11

2

1 YT TC

S13 S33 S 23 S33

1 ZT Z C 1 ZT Z C

S13 A A F1 F2 S33 S12 A A F1 F2 S11

S12 A A F1 F2 S 22 S 23 A A F2 F3 S33

MS F22

1 XT X C

MS F12

S12 1 S11 X T X C 1 S13 S12 2 S11S33

S12 1 S 22 YT YC S 23 F1A F3A S33

S13 S 23
2 S33

1 ZT Z C

2 1 S12 F1A F2A 2 S11S 22

2 1 S12 2 S11S 22

1 F1A F2A

1 S12 S 23 2 S 22 S33

S13 F2A F3A S33

where Sij are the components of the compliance matrix and X C , YC , Z C are the compressive stress

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strengths of lamina in the x, y, z directions, respectively, and X T , YT , ZT are the tensile stress strengths of lamina in the x, y, z directions, respectively and R , S , T are the shear stress strengths of lamina in yz, xz, and xy planes, respectively. 4. Numerical results The properties of the material are E1 181 GPa , E2 10.3 GPa , G12 7.17 GPa , 12 0.28 , X T 1500 MPa , X C = 1500 MPa, YT = 40 MPa, YC = 246 MPa, T = 68 MPa. Numerical results are given for cylindrical panels with various thickness ratios h and the failure load vs. lamination angle 90 . A cylindrical panel under uniaxial compressive load N yy in the y graphs are plotted for 0 direction is shown in Figure 1 where is taken as

4.

Table 1 shows the optimization results where opt , N f , max , and the corresponding failure mode are given for the stacking sequences SSA-SSE. The best optimal design is indicated by bold fonts. N f versus graphs are shown in Figures 2 and 3 for the boundary conditions SSSS and CCCC with
h 0.005, 0.010, 0.015, 0.020 and a / b 1.0 where a square on a curve denotes failure by the first ply failure mode. The best stacking sequence for each h value is selected and indicated next to the corresponding h value. In Figures 2 and 3, N f values were calculated taking an increment of 5 for .
Table 1. Optimization results for a / b =1.0

SSSS
h
Stacking sequence A B C D E A B C D E A B C D E A B C D E
opt

CCCC
Failure Mode* S B S S S S B B B S B B S B S B B B B B
opt

N f , max
67.951 62.521 73.848 73.487 67.448 51.208 34.957 50.558 55.142 50.769 26.521 16.248 23.910 26.132 27.952 6.348 3.889 5.927 6.408 7.034

N f , max
12.148 10.702 12.189 12.213 12.153 8.030 5.504 7.059 8.300 8.954 3.369 2.322 3.234 3.701 3.760 0.810 0.525 0.800 0.858 0.911

Failure Mode* S B S S S B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B

0.020

0.015

0.010

0.005

20 15 25 25 25 20 15 25 25 25 30 15 60 30 30 35 15 55 55 35

25 15 25 25 25 30 15 35 30 30 30 20 60 50 35 35 20 55 45 35

* B and S denote failure due to buckling and first-ply failure, respectively

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SSSS panels (Figure 2): It is observed from Figure 2 that for all h, N f increases with increasing 30 , but N f decreases after this initial maximum point. A local maximum occurs around until about
60 followed by a gradual decrease for 60 . Strength constraint becomes more and more active with increasing h and finally dominates the design for h 0.020 . The best stacking sequences are E, E, A, D for h 0.005 , 0.010, 0.015, and 0.020, respectively, when a / b 1.0 . CCCC panels (Figure 3): It is observed from Figure 3 that at a / b 1.0 , the strength constraint is not 35 and 0 90 for h 0.015 and 0.020, active for h 0.005 and 0.010, and active for respectively. The best stacking sequences are E, E, E, D for h 0.005 , 0.010, 0.015, and 0.020, respectively, when a / b 1.0 .
14 12 10 8 Nf 6 4 2 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
h =0.010 (E) h =0.015 (A) h =0.020 (D)

SSSS a /b =1.0

h =0.005 (E)

Figure 2. Failure load vs for curved panel, SSSS, and a / b

14
h =0.020 (D)

1 .0
CCCC a /b =1.0

12 10 8 Nf 6 4 2 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
h =0.010 (E) h =0.015 (E)

h =0.005 (E)

80

90

Figure 3. Failure load vs for curved panel, CCCC, and a / b

1.0

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4. Conclusions Optimum lamination angles of selected stacking sequences are given for cylindrical panels under uniaxial compressive loads with the objective of maximizing the failure load which is defined as the minimum of the buckling and the first-ply failure loads. An eight-node degenerated shell element is employed for the stability and stress analyses based on the shear deformable theory of composite laminates. As expected, for thick panels failure mode mostly is due to first-ply failure rather than buckling. However, for thin panels, buckling is the dominant failure mode. For all stacking sequences, there is a transition thickness between buckling-dominant and first-ply failure-dominant failure modes. In the present study, optimal stacking sequences are obtained for selected laminations, namely, [ / / 90 / 0 ]s , [ / / / ]s , [90 / 0 / / ]s , [0 / 90 / / ]s , [ / / 0 / 90 ]s by determining the optimal . Even though these laminations may not represent the global optimal designs, due to construction difficulties they are easier to manufacture. They also provide an understanding of the failure modes and ply angle sensitivity of the panels with various thickness and aspect ratios. It is observed that the best stacking sequence depends on the thickness of the panel as well as the boundary conditions. Acknowledgement This research reported in this paper was supported by research grants from the University of KwaZuluNatal and from National Research Foundation of South Africa. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support provided by UKZN and NRF. References [1] Degenhardt R, Kling A, Rohwer K, Orifici AC, Thomson RS, Design and analysis of stiffened composite panels including post-buckling and collapse. Computers & Structures 2008;86 (9):919-929. [2] Lee MCW, Kelly DW, Degenhardt R, Thomson RS, A study on the robustness of two stiffened composite fuselage panels. Composite Structures 2010;92(2):223-232. [3] Jun SM, Hong CS, Buckling behaviour of laminated composite cylindrical panels under axial compression. Computers & Structures 1988;29:479-490. [4] Featherston CA, Watson A, Buckling of optimised curved composite panels under shear and inplane bending. Composites Science and Technology 2006;66:28782894. [5] Abouhamze M, Shakeri M, Multi-objective stacking sequence optimization of laminated cylindrical panels using a genetic algorithm and neural networks. Composite Structures 2007;81(2):253-263. [6] Hu HT, Yang JS, Buckling optimization of laminated cylindrical panels subjected to axial compressive load. Composite Structures 2007;81(3):374-385. [7] Reddy JN, Pandey AK, A first-ply failure analysis of composite laminates. Computers & Structures 1987;25(3):371-393.