Stability Analysis of Laminated Composite Twisted Plates with Holes

Abstract

A composite material is formed by the combination of two or more individual components of materials which have different unique properties. Thus this combination leads to a material which has better properties than the materials from which it is formed. This paper aims to evaluate the buckling load of square cross ply laminated composite twisted plate with circular cutouts with the variation of different parameters. The different types of parameters considered in this study are: (a) cutout location (b) cutout size (c) different layups (d) angle of twist and (e) aspect ratio. Uniaxial compressional loading is considered throughout the paper. Due to the presence of cutouts in the plates, the stress concentration is near to the holes and the stiffness of the plates is reduced. The analysis considering the above factors is made using ANSYS software. An eight node element is considered in the present analysis with six degrees of freedom per node. The SHELL 281 with six degrees of freedom per node is used. The effect of angle of twist, number of layers, hole diameter, location of hole etc on buckling loads are presented in this paper. It is found that with the increase of the angle of twist of laminated composite twisted plate with different holes, the buckling load decreases. Also as the hole diameter increases the buckling load decreases for different ply layups. Different types of models are created and buckling analysis is carried out considering various parameters.