BUCKLING ANALYSIS OF WOVEN GLASS EPOXY LAMINATED COMPOSITE PLATE

Buckling behaviour of laminated composite plates subjected to in-plane loads is an important consideration in the preliminary design of aircraft components. Hence their buckling behaviors are important factors in safe and reliable design of the structures. The sizing of many structural subcomponents of the aircraft structures is often determined by stability constraints. The objective of the current study is to understand the influence of the length-to-thickness ratio, the aspect ratio, the fibre orientation and the cut-out shapes on the buckling load for the glass epoxy laminated composite plate in clamped-free-clamped-free configuration by FE analysis. Initially, buckling analysis is carried out on aluminium plates, both; experimentally and numerically; for the two different geometric configurations to predict the critical buckling load. Few buckling tests are conducted on these aluminum plates and the test results are compared with the FEA predictions, to check the validity of the analysis methodology. The same methodology is further followed for analyzing the behaviour of the composite plates to study the effect of orientation of fibre, aspect ratio, cut-out shape and length-to-thickness ratio on the buckling of the glass epoxy laminated composite plate.