Symmetrical laminates

The in-plane stiffness behaviour of symmetric laminates may be analysed as follows. The plies in a laminate are all securely bonded together so that when the laminate is subjected to a force in the plane of the laminate, all the plies deform by the same amount. Hence, the strain is the same in every ply but because the modulus of each ply is different, the stresses are not the same. This is illustrated in Fig. 3.19. 

Thus the stiffness matrix for a symmetric laminate may be obtained by adding, in proportion to the ply thickness, the corresponding terms in the stiffness matrix for each of the plies. 

Summary of Steps to Predict Stiffness of Symmetric Laminates... 

The previous section has illustrated a simple convenient means of analysing in-plane loading of symmetric laminates. Many laminates are of this type and so this approach is justified. However, there are also many situations where other types of loading (including bending) are applied to laminates which may be symmetric or non-symmetric. In order to deal with these situations it is necessary to adopt a more general type of analysis. 

The Coupling Matrix will be zero for a symmetrical laminate. 

Fig. 3.25 Variation of elastic properties for a (+/ — 45) symmetric laminate of carbon/epoxy...

The important point to note from this Example is that in a non-symmetrical laminate the behaviour is very complex. It can be seen that the effect of a simple uniaxial stress, or, is to produce strains and curvatures in all directions. This has relevance in a number of polymer processing situations because unbalanced cooling (for example) can result in layers which have different properties, across a moulding wall thickness. This is effectively a composite laminate structure which is likely to be non-symmetrical and complex behaviour can be expected when loading is applied. 

As [fi] = 0 in this symmetric laminate, the compliance matrix is obtained by inverting [A]... 

This is a non-symmetric laminate. The Q matrices are given in the text and the A, B and D matrices are determined from... 

Special cases of symmetric laminates will be described in the following subsections. In each case, the Ay and Dy in Equations (4.37) and (4.38) take on different values, and some will even vanish. 

Symmetric Laminates with Muitipie isotropic Layers... 

Figure 4-15 Unbonded View of a Three-Layered Symmetric Laminate with Isotropic Layers...

Table 4-1 Symmetric Laminate with Six Multiple Isotropic Layers...

Table 4-2 Symmetric Laminate with Five Specially Orthotropic Layers...

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... 

Note the presence of the bend-twist coupling stiffnesses in the boundary conditions as well as in the differential et uation. As with the specially orthotropic laminated plate, the simply supported edge boundary condition cannot be further distinguished by the character of the in-plane boundary conditions on u and v because the latter do not appear in any plate problem for a symmetric laminate. 

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. 

The basic approaches as summarized by Ashton and Whitney [6-31] will now be discussed. First, a symmetric laminate with orthotropic laminae having principal material directions aligned with the plate axes will be treated. The transverse normal strain can be found from the orthotropic stress-strain relations, Equation (2.15), as... 

Whitney and Pagano [6-32] extended Yang, Norris, and Stavsky s work [6-33] to the treatment of coupling between bending and extension. Whitney uses a higher order stress theory to obtain improved predictions of a, and and displacements at low width-to-thickness ratios [6-34], Meissner used his variational theorem to derive a consistent set of equations for inclusion of transverse shearing deformation effects in symmetrically laminated plates [6-35]. Finally, Ambartsumyan extended his treatment of transverse shearing deformation effects from plates to shells [6-36]. 

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