Analysis of composite laminates using graphical processing

Abstract

The increased usage of advanced fibrous composite materials in structural engineering has made mandatory the development of computacional models for their analysis. The present model for linear and nonlinear analysis is based on the finite element techniques and deals with plates, slabs or plane shells made of fibrous and laminated composite materials. Parabolic finite elements formulated according to the Mindlin theory are employed. The assumption of constant transverse shear strain is corrected by using a shear correction factor derived in cylindrical bending to approximate the real shear strain energy. The computacional code, developed for small computers, consists in three basic parts: pré-processing with graphical verification; analysis to obtain the global displacements and reactions for each load case, and finally, post-processing with full graphical output of all quantities of interest for each layer or layer interfaces. Some applications are ilustrated.