Lamina orthotropic materials

However, as mentioned previously, orthotropic laminae are often constructed in such a manner that the principal material coordinates do not coincide with the natural coordinates of the body. This statement is not to be interpreted as meaning that the material itself is no longer orthotropic instead, we are just looking at an orthotropic material in an unnatural manner, i.e., in a coordinate system that is oriented at some angle to the principal material coordinate system. Then, the basic question is given the stress-strain relations In the principal material coordinates, what are the stress-strain relations in x-y coordinates ... 

In Section 2.2, the stress-strain relations (generalized Hooke s law) for anisotropic and orthotropic as well as isotropic materials are discussed. These relations have two commonly accepted manners of expression compliances and stiffnesses as coefficients (elastic constants) of the stress-strain relations. The most attractive form of the stress-strain relations for orthotropic materials involves the engineering constants described in Section 2.3. The engineering constants are particularly helpful in describing composite material behavior because they are defined by the use of very obvious and simple physical measurements. Restrictions in the form of bounds are derived for the elastic constants in Section 2.4. These restrictions are useful in understanding the unusual behavior of composite materials relative to conventional isotropic materials. Attention is focused in Section 2.5 on stress-strain relations for an orthotropic material under plane stress conditions, the most common use of a composite lamina. These stress-strain relations are transformed in Section 2.6 to coordinate systems that are not aligned with the principal material... 

The stress-strain reiations in principal material coordinates for a lamina of an orthotropic material under plane stress are... 

Because of the analytical complications involving the stiffnesses Ai6, A26, D g, and D26, a laminate is sometimes desired that does not have these stiffnesses. Laminates can be made with orthotropic layers that have principal material directions aligned with the laminate axes. If the thicknesses, locations, and material properties of the laminae are symmetric about the middle surface of the laminate, there is no coupling between bending and extension. A general example is shown in Table 4-2. Note that the material property symmetry requires equal [Q j], of the two layers that are placed at the same distance above and below the middle surface. Thus, both the orthotropic material properties, [Qjjlk. of the layers and the angle of the principal material directions to the laminate axes (i.e., the orientation of each layer) must be identical. 

Antisymmetry of a laminate requires (1) symmetry about the middle surface of geometry (i.e., consider a pair of equal-thickness laminae, one some distance above the middle surface and the other the same distance below the middle surface), but (2i some kind of a reversal or mirror image of the material properties [Qjjlk- In fact, the orthotropic material properties [Qjj], are symmetric, but the orientations of the laminae principal material directions are not symmetric about the middle surface. Those orientations are reversed from 0° to 90° (or vice versa) or from + a to - a (a mirror image about the laminate x-axis). Because the [Qjj]k are not symmetric, bending-extension coupling exists. 

Consider two laminae with principal material directions at -t- a and - a with respect to a reference axis. Prove that fr orthotropic materials... 

For cross-ply laminates, a knee in the load-deformation cun/e occurs after the mechanical and thermal interactions between layers uncouple because of failure (which might be only degradation, not necessarily fracture) of a lamina. The mechanical interactions are caused by Poisson effects and/or shear-extension coupling. The thermal interactions are caused by different coefficients of thermal expansion in different layers because of different angular orientations of the layers (even though the orthotropic materials in each lamina are the same). The interactions are disrupted if the layers in a laminate separate. 

Note that no assumptions involve fiber-reinforced composite materials explicitly. Instead, only the restriction to orthotropic materials at various orientations is significant because we treat the macroscopic behavior of an individual orthotropic (easily extended to anisotropic) lamina. Therefore, what follows is essentially a classical plate theory for laminated materials. Actually, interlaminar stresses cannot be entirely disregarded in laminated plates, but this refinement will not be treated in this book other than what was studied in Section 4.6. Transverse shear effects away from the edges will be addressed briefly in Section 6.6. 

The macromechanical behavior of a lamina was quantitatively described in Chapter 2. The basic three-dimensional stress-strain relations for elastic anisotropic and orthotropic materials were examined. Subsequently, those relations were specialized for the plane-stress state normally found in a lamina. The plane-stress relations were then transformed in the plane of the lamina to enable treatment of composite laminates with different laminae at various angles. The various fundamental strengths of a lamina were identified, discussed, and subsequently used in biaxial strength criteria to predict the off-axis strength of a lamina. 

The treatment of transverse shear stress effects in plates made of isotropic materials stems from the classical papers by Reissner [6-26] and Mindlin [6-27. Extension of Reissner s theory to plates made of orthotropic materials is due to Girkmann and Beer [6-28], Ambartsumyan [6-29] treated symmetrically laminated plates with orthotropic laminae having their principal material directions aligned with the plate axes. Whitney [6-30] extended Ambartsumyan s analysis to symmetrically laminated plates with orthotropic laminae of arbitrary orientation. 

Let us first consider the case of an isotropic material, then simplify it for the case of an orthotropic material (same properties in the two directions orthogonal to the fiber axis—in this case, directions 2 and 3), snch as a nnidirectionally reinforced composite lamina. Eqnation (5.128) can be written in terms of the strain and stress components, which are conpled dne to the anisotropy of the material. In order to describe the behavior in a manageable way, it is cnstomary to introdnce a reduced set of nomenclature. Direct stresses and strains have two snbscripts—for example, an, 22, ti2, and Y2i, depending on whether the stresses and strains are tensile (a and s) or shear (t and y) in natnre. The modnli should therefore also have two subscripts En, E22, and G 2, and so on. By convention, engineers nse a contracted form of notation, where possible, so that repeated snbscripts are reduced to just one an becomes a, En becomes En but Gn stays the same. The convention is fnrther extended for stresses and strains, such that distinctions between tensile and shear stresses and strains are... 

The characteristic features of a cord—mbber composite have produced the netting theory (67—70), the cord—iaextensible theory (71—80), the classical lamination theory, and the three-dimensional theory (67,81—83). From stmctural considerations, the fundamental element of cord—mbber composite is unidirectionaHy reinforced cord—mbber lamina as shown in Figure 5. From the principles of micromechanics and orthotropic elasticity laws, engineering constants of tire T cord composites in terms of constitutive material properties have been expressed (72—79,84). The most commonly used Halpin-Tsai equations (75,76) for cord—mbber single-ply lamina L, are expressed in equation 5 ... 

The term Cg3 is zero because no shear-extension coupling exists for an orthotropic lamina in principal material coordinates. For the orthotropic lamina, the Qn are... 

A so-called specially orthotropic lamina is an orthotropic lamina whose principal material axes are aligned with the natural body axes ... 

Note that the transformed reduced stiffness matrix Qy has terms in all nine positions in contrast to the presence of zeros in the reduced stiffness matrix Qy. However, there are still only four independent material constants because the lamina is orthotropic. In the general case with body coordinates x and y, there is coupling between shear strain and normal stresses and between shear stress and normal strains, i.e., shear-extension coupling exists. Thus, in body coordinates, even an orthotropic lamina appears to be anisotropic. However, because such a lamina does have orthotropic characteristics in principal material coordinates, it is called a generally orthotropic lamina because it can be represented by the stress-strain relations in Equation (2.84). That is, a generally orthotropic lamina is an orthotropic lamina whose principai material axes are not aligned with the natural body axes. 

The only advantage associated with generally orthotropic laminae as opposed to anisotropic laminae is that generally orthotropic laminae are easier to characterize experimentally. However, if we do not realize that principal material axes exist, then a generally orthotropic lamina is indistinguishable from an anisotropic lamina. That is, we cannot take away the inherent orthotropic character of a lamina, but we cpn orient the lamina in such a manner as to make that character quite difficult to recognize. 

Compare the transformed orthotropic compliances in Equation (2.88) with the anisotropic compliances in terms of engineering constants in Equation (2.91). Obviously an apparenf shear-extension coupling coefficient results when an orthotropic lamina is stressed in non-principal material coordinates. Redesignate the coordinates 1 and 2 in Equation (2.90) as X and y because, by definition, an anisotropic material has no principal material directions. Then, substitute the redesignated Sy from Equation (2.91) in Equation (2.88) along with the orthotropic compliances in Equation (2.62). Finally, the apparent engineering constants for an orthotropic iamina that is stressed in non-principal x-y coordinates are... 

The apparent anisotropic moduli for an orthotropic lamina stressed at an angle 6 to the principal material directions vary with 6 as in Equation... 

The values in Figures 2-11 and 2-12 are not entirely typical of all composite materials. For example, follow the hints in Exercise 2.6.7 to demonstrate that E can actually exceed both E., and E2 for some orthotropic laminae. Similarly, E, can be shown to be smaller than both E. and E2 (note that for boron-epoxy in Figure 2-12 E, is slightly smaller than E2 in the neighborhood of 6 = 60°). These results were summarized by Jones [2-6] as a simple theorem the extremum (largest and smallest) material properties do not necessarily occur in principal material coordinates. The moduli Gxy xy xyx exhibit similar peculiarities within the scope of Equation (2.97). Nothing should, therefore, be taken for granted with a new composite material its moduli as a function of 6 must be examined to truly understand its character. 

What has been accomplished in preceding sections on stiffness relationships serves as the basis for determination of the actual stress field what remains is the definition of the allowable stress field. The first step in such a definition is the establishment of allowable stresses or strengths in the principal material directions. Such information is basic to the study of strength of an orthotropic lamina. 

Then, obviously the maximum principal stress is lower than the largest strength. However, 02 is greater than Y, so the lamina must fail under the imposed stresses (perhaps by cracking parallel to the fibers, but not necessarily). The key observation is that strength is a function of orientation of stresses relative to the principal material coordinates of an orthotropic lamina. In contrast, for an isotropic material, strength is independent of material orientation relative to the imposed stresses (the isotropic material has no orientation). 

Now that the basic stiffnesses and strengths have been defined for the principal material coordinates, we can proceed to determine how an orthotropic lamina behaves under biaxial stress states in Section 2.9. There, we must combine the information in principal material coordinates in order to define the stiffness and strength of a lamina at arbitrary orientations under arbitrary biaxial stress states. 

A very common special case of symmetric laminates with multiple specially orthotropic layers occurs when the laminae are all of the same thickness and material properties, but have their major principal material... 

The stiffnesses of an antisymmetric laminate of anisotropic laminae do not simplify from those presented in Equations (4.22) and (4.23). However, as a consequence of antisymmetry of material properties of generally orthotropic laminae, but symmetry of their thicknesses, the shear-extension coupling stiffness A.,6,... 

An antisymmetric cross-ply laminate consists of an even number of orthotropic laminae laid on each other with principal material directions alternating at 0° and 90° to the laminate axes as in the simple example of Figure 4-19. A more complicated example is given in Table 4-4 (where the adjacent layers do not always have the sequence 0°, then 90°, then 0°, etc.). Such laminates do not have A g, Agg, D g, and Dgg, but do have bending-extension coupling. We will show later that the coupling is such that the force and moment resultants are... 

For plane stress on an orthotropic lamina in principal material coordinates. 

Consider an angle-ply laminate composed of orthotropic laminae that are symmetrically arranged about the middle surface as shown in Figure 4-48. Because of the symmetry of both material properties and geometry, there is no coupling between bending and extension. That is, the laminate in Figure 4-48 can be subjected to and will only extend in the x-direction and contract in the y- and z-directions, but will not bend. 

The analysis of such a laminate by use of classical lamination theory revolves about the stress-strain relations of an individual orthotropic lamina under a state of plane stress in principal material directions... 

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