Three-dimensional thermoelastic properties of general composite laminates

Abstract

This paper presents a hybrid rule of mixtures for calculating the complete set of effective three-dimensional thermoelastic properties of a composite laminate when it is approximated as an equivalent, homogeneous, anisotropic solid. The laminate can be made of generally anisotropic layers with arbitrary layup sequence. This hybrid rule of mixtures is based on the exact solution obtained using the recently discovered mechanics of structure genome. Since mechanics of structure genome minimizes the loss of accuracy for homogenization, the three-dimensional thermoelastic properties obtained using the mechanics of structure genome-based hybrid rule of mixtures will be the most accurate one could obtain for composite laminates. The results of the hybrid rule of mixtures are compared with several other representative methods for predicting thermoelastic properties of composite laminates.