Stress Analysis of Free-Edge Laminated Composite Plates by Two Bending Elements

Abstract

Two higher order triangular elements will be formulated for inter-laminar stresses analysis in free edge of the laminated composite bending plates. The analysis is based on a displacement model and includes the higher order shear deformation. To demonstrate the validity and efficiency of the proposed method, the orthotropic laminated composite plates with arbitrary laminations and boundary conditions will be analyzed. In this paper, the effects of increasing the number of nodes and the degree of interpolation functions will be studied. It will be proven that by using particular higher order interpolation, more accurate stress resultants for plates can be predicted. Furthermore, a good rate of convergence will be found by utilizing only a very coarse mesh.