An Analytical Method for Elastic-Plastic Stress in a Thermoplastic Composite Cantilever Beam Subjected to Bias-Axis Tension Load

Abstract

The paper presents an elastic-plastic stress analysis for a woven steel fibre-reinforced thermoplastic composite cantilever beam subjected to bias-axis tension load. A polynomial stress function is utilized to satisfy both the governing differential equation in the plane stress case and the corresponding boundary conditions for elastic-plastic deformation. An analytical solution for the elastic-plastic problem of the composite beam is obtained by means of Tsai-Hill strength theory of anisotropic material. The composite beam is composed of a steel fibre reinforced low-density polyethylene thermoplastic matrix with exponent hardening material property. In contrast, an elastic-plastic finite element for the same problem is also carried out by applying ANSYS finite element analysis system. Comparing the analytical solution with the finite element solution, it can be found that two kinds of results obtained by making use of two different solving methods are suitably approached. Finally, some examples for thermoplastic composite cantilever beams with two kinds of volume percentage of fibres are carried out and the corresponding results are discussed.