Least Square Finite Element Model for Analysis of Multilayered Composite Plates under Arbitrary Boundary Conditions

Laminated composites are widely used in many engineering industries such as aircraft, spacecraft, boat hulls, racing car bodies, and storage tanks. We analyze the 3D deformations of a multilayered, linear elastic, anisotropic rectangular plate subjected to arbitrary boundary conditions on one edge and simply supported on other edge. The rectangular laminate consists of anisotropic and homogeneous laminae of arbitrary thicknesses. This study presents the elastic analysis of laminated composite plates subjected to sinusoidal mechanical loading under arbitrary boundary conditions. Least square finite element solutions for displacements and stresses are investigated using a mathematical model, called a state-space model, which allows us to simultaneously solve for these field variables in the composite structure’s domain and ensure that continuity conditions are satisfied at layer interfaces. The governing equations are derived from this model using a numerical technique called the least-squares finite element method (LSFEM). These LSFEMs seek to minimize the squares of the governing equations and the associated side conditions residuals over the computational domain. The model is comprised of layerwise variables such as displacements, out-of-plane stresses, and in- plane strains, treated as independent variables. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the response of the laminated composite plates under various arbitrary boundary conditions using LSFEM and compared with the 3D elasticity solution available in the literature.

A refined finite element method for bending analysis of laminated plates integrated with piezoelectric fiber-reinforced composite actuators

This research presents a finite element formulation based on four-variable refined plate theory for bending analysis of cross-ply and angle-ply laminated composite plates integrated with a piezoelectric fiber-reinforced composite actuator under electromechanical loading. The four-variable refined plate theory is a simple and efficient higher-order shear deformation theory, which predicts parabolic variation of transverse shear stresses across the plate thickness and satisfies zero traction conditions on the plate free surfaces. The weak form of governing equations is derived using the principle of minimum potential energy, and a 4-node non-conforming rectangular plate element with 8 degrees of freedom per node is introduced for discretizing the domain. Several benchmark problems are solved by the developed MATLAB code and the obtained results are compared with those from exact and other numerical solutions, showing good agreement.

Nonlinear vibrations of a composite circular plate with a rigid body

The influence of weights is usually ignored in the study of nonlinear vibrations of plates.In this paper,the effect of structure weights on the nonlinear vibration of a composite circular plate with a rigid body is presented.The nonlinear governing equations are derived from the generalized Hamilton's principle and the von Kármán plate theory.The equilibrium configurations due to weights are determined and validated by the finite element method(FEM).A nonlinear model for the vibration around the equilibrium configuration is established.Moreover,the natural frequencies and amplitude-frequency responses of harmonically forced vibrations are calculated.The study shows that the structure weights introduce additional linear and quadratic nonlinear terms into the dynamical model.This leads to interesting phenomena.For example,considering weights increases the natural frequency.Furthermore,when the influence of weights is considered,the vibration response of the plate becomes asymmetrical.

Research on stability of laminated composite plate under nonlinear aerodynamic load

In this paper,we propose an finite element approach based on classical plate theory to investigate the dynamic stability of a layered composite plate subject to nonlinear aerodynamic load.This study considers the influence of temperature,nonlinear geometry,and nonlinear aerodynamic load on composite plate structures simultaneously.Specifically,the present work conduct comparison the results of the critical pressure value between the nonlinear aerodynamic load and the linear aerodynamic load,thereby pointing out some necessary cases which must consider the nonlinearity of aerodynamic load for calculating the aerospace structures.We determine the critical pressure value and vibrational amplitude response of the plate by means of calculation.The outcomes of our calculations can be useful in designing and repairing body shells and wings of aircraft equipment.

INTERFACIAL DEBONDING OF COATED-FIBER-REINFORCED COMPOSITES UNDER TENSION-TENSION CYCLIC LOADING

A new degradation function of the friction coefficient is used.Based on the double shear-lag model and Paris formula,the interracial damage of coated- fiber-reinforced composites under tension-tension cyclic loading is studied.The effects of strength and thickness of the coating materials on the debond stress,debond rate as well as debond length are simulated.

Fiber-reinforced Mechanism and Mechanical Performance of Composite Fibers Reinforced Concrete

To understand the enhancing effect and fiber-reinforced mechanism of composite fibers reinforced cement concrete, the influences of composite fibers on micro-cracks and the distribution of composite fibers were evaluated by optical electron micrometer(OEM) and scanning electron microscope(SEM). Three kinds of fiber, such as polyacrylonitrile-based carbon fiber, basalt fiber, and glass fiber, were used in the composite fibers reinforced cement concrete. The composite fibers could form a stable structure in concrete after the liquid-phase coupling treatment, gas-liquid double-effect treatment, and inert atmosphere drying. The mechanical properties of composite fibers reinforced concrete(CFRC) were studied by universal test machine(UTM). Moreover, the effect of composite fibers on concrete was analyzed based on the toughness index and residual strength index. The results demonstrated that the composite fibers could improve the mechanical properties of concrete, while the excessive amount of composite fibers had an adverse effect on the mechanical properties of concrete. The composite fibers could significantly improve the toughness index of CFRC, and the increment rate is more than 30%. The composite fibers could form a mesh structure, which could promote the stability of concrete and guarantee the excellent mechanical properties.

A parallel fast multipole BEM and its applications to large-scale analysis of 3-D fiber-reinforced composites

In this paper, an adaptive boundary element method （BEM） is presented for solving 3-D elasticity problems. The numerical scheme is accelerated by the new version of fast multipole method （FMM） and parallelized on distributed memory architectures. The resulting solver is applied to the study of representative volume element （RVE） for short fiberreinforced composites with complex inclusion geometry. Numerical examples performed on a 32-processor cluster show that the proposed method is both accurate and efficient, and can solve problems of large size that are challenging to existing state-of-the-art domain methods.

Influence of Low-velocity Impact on Damage Behavior of Carbon Fiber-reinforced Composites

A combination of experimental measurements and numerical analysis was utilized to study the low-velocity impact damage of domestic carbon fiber-reinforced composites(CFRCs).The results indicated that the low-velocity impact damage induced pits and longitudinal cracks on the front side,oblique cracks and delaminationin on the back side.The pit depth increased with the increasing impact energy.It was demonstrated that the numerical analysis strain history curve was similar to the experimentally measured strain history curve,which verified the accuracy of numerical analysis in which the Hashin failure criterion was used.The work provides basic data and theoretical basis for the promotion and application of the domestic carbon fiber,and demonstrates the feasibility of replacing imported carbon fibers with domestic carbon fibers.

ANALYTICAL SOLUTIONS FOR ELASTOSTATIC PROBLEMS OF PARTICLE-AND FIBER-REINFORCED COMPOSITES WITH INHOMOGENEOUS INTERPHASES

By transforming the governing equations for displacement components into Riccati equations, analytical solutions for displacements, strains and stresses for Representive Volume Elements (RVEs) of particle_ and fiber_reinforced composites containing inhomo geneous interphases were obtained. The analytical solutions derived here are new and general for power_law variations of the elastic moduli of the inhomogeneous interphases. Given a power exponent, analytical expressions for the bulk moduli of the composites with inho mogeneous interphases can be obtained. By changing the power exponent and the coefficients of the power terms, the solutions derived here can be applied to inhomogeneous interphases with many different property profiles. The results show that the modulus variation and the thickness of the inhomogeneous interphase have great effect on the bulk moduli of the composites. The particle will exhibit a sort of “size effect”, if there is an interphase.

NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF 2D FIBER-REINFORCED COMPOSITES USING BOUNDARY ELEMENT METHOD

The boundary dement method was improved for the 2D elastic composites with randomly distributed inclusions. This problem can be reduced to a boundary integral equation for a multi-connected domain. Further, considering the matrices of the tractions and displacements for each group of the identical inclusion were the same, an effective computational scheme was designed, since the orders of the resulting matrix equations can be greatly reduced. Numerical examples indicate that this boundary element method scheme is more effective than the conventional multi-domain boundary element method for such a problem. The present scheme can be used to investigate the effective mechanical properties of the fiber-reinforced composites.

A Biomimetic Model of Fiber-reinforced Composite Materials

In thjs paper. bamboo fiber has been. on micro scale. investigated as a helical. multi-layered hollow cylinder, the stiffness featu res of bamboo bast fiber were compared with those of a multifilament yarn in traditional fiber-reinforced composite materials, Moreover. a biomimetic model of the reinforce ment of fiber-reinforced composite materials was proposed by imitating the fine structure of bamboo bast fiber. The results show that the comprehensive stiffness properties of the cornplicated fine struc ture of bamboo fiber is superior over those of traditional fiber-reinforced composites.

The finite element analysis of articular cartilage fiber-reinforced composite model under rolling load

Articular cartilage is a layer of low-friction,load-bearing soft hydrated tissue covering bone-ends in diarthrosis,which plays an important role in spreading the load,reducing the joint contact stress,joint friction and wear during exercise.The vital mechanical function

ANALYSIS OF NONLINEAR DYNAMIC RESPONSE FOR VISCOELASTIC COMPOSITE PLATE WITH TRANSVERSE MATRIX CRACKS

Based on the Schapery three-dimensional viscoelastic constitutive relationship with growing damage, a damage model with transverse matrix cracks for the unidirectional ?bre rein- forced viscoelastic composite plates is developed. By using Karman theory, the nonlinear dynamic governing equations of the viscoelastic composite plates under transverse periodic loading are es- tablished. By applying the ?nite di?erence method in spatial domain and the Newton-Newmark method in time domain, and using the iterative procedure, the integral-partial di?erential gov- erning equations are solved. Some examples are given and the results are compared with available data.

Application of the quadrilateral area coordinate method:a new element for laminated composite plate bending problems

Recently, some new quadrilateral finite elements were successfully developed by the Quadrilateral Area Coordinate （QAC） method. Compared with those traditional models using isoparametric coordinates, these new models are less sensitive to mesh distortion. In this paper, a new displacement-based, 4-node 20-DOF （5-DOF per node） quadrilateral bending element based on the first-order shear deformation theory for analysis of arbitrary laminated composite plates is presented. Its bending part is based on the element AC-MQ4, a recent-developed high-performance Mindlin-Reissner plate element formulated by QAC method and the generalized conforming condition method; and its in-plane displacement fields are interpolated by bilinear shape functions in isoparametric coordinates. Furthermore, the hybrid post-rocessing procedure, which was firstly proposed by the authors, is employed again to improve the stress solutions, especially for the transverse shear stresses. The resulting element, denoted as AC-MQ4-LC, exhibits excellent performance in all linear static and dynamic numerical examples. It demonstrates again that the QAC method, the generalized conforming condition method, and the hybrid post-processing procedure are efficient tools for developing simple, effective and reliable finite element models.

Double Hopf bifurcation of composite laminated piezoelectric plate subjected to external and internal excitations

The double Hopf bifurcation of a composite laminated piezoelectric plate with combined external and internal excitations is studied. Using a multiple scale method, the average equations are obtained in two coordinates. The bifurcation response equations of the composite laminated piezoelectric plate with the primary parameter resonance, i.e., 1：3 internal resonance, are achieved. Then, the bifurcation feature of bifurcation equations is considered using the singularity theory. A bifurcation diagram is obtained on the parameter plane. Different steady state solutions of the average equations are analyzed. By numerical simulation, periodic vibration and quasi-periodic vibration responses of the Composite laminated piezoelectric plate are obtained.

Nonlinear vibration analysis of a circular composite plate harvester via harmonic balance

Alumped parameter transversevibration model of a composite plate harvester is analyzed via harmonic balance approaches. The harvester is mainly composed of a piezoelectriccircular composite clamped by two steel rings and a proof mass on the plate.The lumped parameter model is a 1.5 degree-of-freedom strongly nonlinear system with a higher order polynomial stiffness. Aharmonic balance approach is developed to analyze the system, and the resulting algebraic equations are numerically solved by adopting an arc-length continuation technique. Anincremental harmonic balance approach is also developedfor the lumped parameter model. The two approaches yieldthe same results.The amplitude-frequency responses produced by the harmonic balance approach are validated by the numericalintegrations and the experimental data. The investigation reveals that there coexist hardening and softening characteristics in the amplitude-frequency response curves under sufficiently large excitations. The harvester with thecoexistenceof hardening and softening nonlinearitiescan outperform not only linear energy harvesters but also typical hardening nonlinear energy harvesters.

STUDY ON THE RESPONSE TO LOW-VELOCITY IMPACT OF A COMPOSITE PLATE IMPROVED BY SHAPE MEMORY ALLOY

Improvement from the pseudo-elastic effect of shape memory alloy （SMA） on the low-velocity impact （LVI） resistance of a composite plate is investigated by the finite element method （FEM）. The stiffness matrix of the dynamic finite element equation is established step by step and the martensite fraction is obtained at each time step. The direct Newmark integration method is employed in solving the dynamic finite element equation, while the impact contact force is determined using the modified Hertz＇s law. It is found that SMA can effectively improve the performance of a composite structure subjected to low-velocity impact. Numerical results show that the deflection of a SMA-hybrid composite plate has been reduced approximately by thirty percent when the volume fraction of the embedded SMA reaches 0.3.

THEORY OF NONLINEAR DYNAMIC STABILITY FOR COMPOSITE LAMINATED PLATES

In this paper, the general equations of dynamic stability for composite laminated plates are derived hyHamilton principle. These general equations can he used to consider those different factors that affect the dynamic stability of laminated plates. The factors are transverse shear deformation, initial imperfections, longitudinal and rotational inertia, and ply-angle of the fiber, etc. The solutions of the fundamental equations show that some important characteristics of the dynamic instability can only be got by the consideration and analysis of those factors

Exact simulation for direction-dependent large elastic strain responses of soft fibre-reinforced composites

An explicit form of the elastic strain-energy function for direction-dependent large elastic strain behaviors of soft fiber-reinforced composites is first presented based upon a decoupled approach for simulating complex nonlinear coupling effects.From this form,the exact closed-form solutions are then obtained for the uniaxial tension responses in the fiber and cross-fiber directions.With such exact solutions,the issue of simultaneously simulating strongly coupling nonlinear responses in the fiber and cross-fiber directions may be reduced to the issue of separately treating each decoupled uniaxial stress-strain response,thus bypassing usual complexities and uncertainties involved in identifying a large number of strongly coupled adjustable parameters.The numerical examples given are in good agreement with the experimental data for large strain responses.

Nonlinear dynamic characteristics and optimal control of a giant magnetostrictive film-shaped memory alloy composite plate subjected to in-plane stochastic excitation

The nonlinear dynamic characteristics and optimal control of a giant magnetostrictive film （GMF）-shaped memory alloy （SMA） composite plate subjected to in-plane stochastic excitation are studied. GMF is prepared based on an SMA plate, and combined into a GMF-SMA composite plate. The Van der Pol item is improved to explain the hysteretic phenomena of GMF and SMA, and the nonlinear dynamics model of a GMF-SMA composite cantilever plate subjected to in-plane stochastic excitation is developed. The stochastic stability of the system is analyzed, and the steady-state probability density function of the dynamic response of the system is obtained. The condition of stochastic Hopf bifurcation is discussed, the reliability function of the system is provided, and then the probability density of the first-passage time is given. Finally, the stochastic optimal control strategy is proposed by the stochastic dynamic programming method. Numerical simulation shows that the stability of the trivial solution varies with bifurcation parameters, and stochastic Hopf bifurcation appears in the process; the system＇s reliability is improved through stochastic optimal control, and the first- passage time is delayed. A GMF-SMA composite plate combines the advantages of GMF and SMA, and can reduce vibration through passive control and active control effectively. The results are helpful for the engineering applications of GMF-SMA composite plates.