Evaluation of smeared properties approaches and mechanics of structure genome for analyzing composite beams

Composite beams could have complex cross sections composed of many layers with different materials and layup angles. The anisotropic and heterogeneous features render three-dimensional (3D) finite element analysis (FEA) with layer details computationally expensive. Smeared properties approaches are commonly used in analyzing such structures. Mechanics of structure genome (MSG) can provide an efficient yet accurate alterative. Several composite beams are studied to evaluate the smeared properties approaches and MSG. In comparison to the detailed 3D FEA, smeared properties approaches are observed to be inaccurate for some global behaviors and most pointwise stress distributions, whereas MSG achieves similar accuracy as 3D FEA for both global behaviors and local stress distributions.