Elastic Behavior of Multilayered Bidirectional Composites

Abstract

SEVERAL recent papers1–5 have addressed the problem of defining the exact (elastic) response of composite laminates under static bending. However, all of these studies have treated laminates consisting of only a few layers, while in practical applications, composite structures may consist of many layers, in some cases, 100 or more. It is therefore appropriate that we consider the response of multi-ply laminates with a view toward examining the generality of previous conclusions regarding the range of validity of the approximate theory normally used in the analysis of these bodies, namely, classical laminated plate theory (CPT).6 Open image in new window Fig. 1 Normal stress distribution.