Static Behaviour of Laminated Composite Shells

With the advancement of aerospace engineering and the progress made in the allied industries, new forms of structural components having high strength-to-weight ratio have been developed. Fibre-reinforced laminate structures are one such type of construction. In the present study, linear behaviour of laminated composite shells under static loading is investigated using ANSYS, the finite element software, by varying the parameters such as laminate thickness, fibre orientation, stacking sequence, fibre strength and radius-to-thickness ratio. It has been observed that the deflection remains constant beyond four layers in the case of anti-symmetric arrangement and for the same angle of fibre orientation, deflection is not influenced by the lamination sequence. The non-dimensional deflection decreases with increase in material anisotropy and included angle, while it increases with increase in radius-to-thickness ratio. © 2013, The Institution of Engineers (India).