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00457949(95)00138-7

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1995 Eisewer Science Lid
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OPTIMIZATION
OF SYMMETRIC
LAMINATES
FOR
MAXIMUM
BUCKLING
LOAD INCLUDING
THE
EFFECTS OF BENDING-TWISTING
COUPLING
M. Walker,t

S. Adali$Q: and V. Verijenkolg

+Depdrtment of Mechanical Engineering, Technikon Natal. Durban, South Africa


ZDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, University of Natal, Durban, South Africa
$ Institute of Advanced Studies, Technikon Natal, Durban. South Africa
(Received

I July 1994)

element solutions are presented for the optimal design of symmetrically laminated
rectangular plates subjected to a combination of simply supported, clamped and free boundary conditions.

Abstract-Finite

The design objective is the maximization


of the biaxial buckling load by determining the fibre orientations
optimally, with the effects of bending-twisting
coupling taken into account. The finite element method
coupled with an optimization
routine is employed in analysing and optimizing the laminated plate designs.

The effects of boundary conditions, the number of layers and bending-twisting coupling on the optimal
ply angles and the buckling load are numerically studied.

the optimal design solutions for a variety of boundary


conditions.
Optimization
of composite plates with respect to
ply angles to maximize the critical buckling load is
necessary to realize the full potential
of fibre-reinforced materials. Results obtained using different
approaches
can be found in the literature.
The
authors mostly dealt with either simply supported or
clamped plate edges, neglecting the effect of bending-twisting
coupling [2-161. These studies established that symmetric lamination yields the highest
buckling load compared to other stacking sequences.
However, the effects of boundary conditions and of
bending-twisting
coupling on the optimal designs
remain mostly unknown.
The influence of bending-twisting
coupling on the buckling load of symmetric angle ply laminates have been investigated in
Refs [17-201 with a study of the subject of Grenestedt [21] for simply supported and clamped boundary
conditions
showing that the biaxial buckling load
decreases when the effect is included in the analysis.
A design study of infinitely long anisotropic laminates by Nemeth [22] indicates that the twisting stiffness parameter should be increased to maximize the
buckling load. A recent study by Kam and Chang [23]
includes the bending-twisting
effect in the design of
simply supported
laminates by employing
a finite
element approach
for design analysis. A more detailed review of the subject can be found in Ref. [24].
As there is little reported on the optimal design of
laminates with bending-twisting
accounted for and
with different boundary conditions,
the results here
aim to fill this gap. The finite element formulation

1. INTRODUCTION
The use of laminated composite materials as structural components
is becoming widespread in several
branches of engineering. These structures often contain components which may be modelled as rectangular plates. A common type of composite plate is the
symmetrically
laminated
angle ply configuration
which avoids bending-stretching
effects by virtue of
mid-plane symmetry. An important failure mode for
these plates is buckling under in-plane loading. The
buckling resistance of the fibre composite plates can
be improved
by using the ply angle as a design
variable and determining the optimal angles to maximize the buckling load.
One phenomenon associated with symmetric angleply configurations
is the occurrence
of bending-twisting
coupling which may cause significantly
different results as compared to cases in which this
coupling
is exactly zero [I]. The effect of bending-twisting
coupling
becomes
even more pronounced for laminates with few layers. Due to this
coupling, closed-form
solutions cannot be obtained
for any of the boundary conditions and this situation
led to neglecting bending-twisting
coupling in several
studies involving the optimization
of symmetric laminates under buckling loads[2-161.
In actual fact,
closed-form
solutions for symmetric laminates are
not available even for the simplified models where
this coupling is neglected except if the boundary
conditions
are simply supported
all around. The
present study adopts a numerical approach to include
the effect of bending-twisting
coupling and to obtain
313

M. Walker et al.

314

which is used in the present study is based on Mindlin


type theory for laminated composite plates. Numerical results are given for various combinations of
boundary conditions and optimal designs with and
without bending-twisting coupling are compared.

Here, a subscript after the comma denotes differentiation with respect to the variable following the
comma.
The transverse shear strains are obtained from
(4)

2. BUCKLING OF SYMMETRIC LAMINATES

Consider a symmetrically laminated rectangular


plate of length a, width b and thickness h which
consists of n orthotropic layers with fibre angles Ok,
k = 1,2,
,K, as shown in Fig. I. The plate is
defined in the Cartesian coordinates x, y and z with
axes x and y lying on the middle surface of the plate.
The plate is subjected to biaxial compressive forces
N, and NJ in the x and Y directions, respectively, as
shown in Fig. 1. Plates with these characteristics are
commonly known as symmetric angle-ply laminates.
In the present study, a first-order shear deformable
theory is employed to analyse the problem and the
following displacement field is assumed:

The equations for in-plane stresses of the kth layer


under a plane stress state may be written as

and similarly for the transverse shear stresses as

u = u,(x, Y) + zti/,(x, Y)
u = &Ax,Y) + z$, (x3Y)
w = w(x, YX

(1)

where rlO, vO and wO are the displacements of the


reference surface in the x, Y and z direction, respectively, and $,, $, are the rotations of the transverse
normal about the x and Y axes.
The in-plane strain components can be written as
a sum of the extensional and flexural parts and they
are given as

where

and

where a is a shear correction factor [25], and Qij are


the transformed stiffnesses.
Equations (5) and (6) may be written in compact
form as
ok

(7)

Qkt,

where Qk refers to the full matrix with elements


(0, )k, 7 and at and e represent in-plane and transverse
stresses and strains, respectively. The resulting shear
forces and moments acting on the plate are obtained
by integrating the stresses through the laminate thickness, viz.

s
shi2
h/2

{q=(v,,

(7.x;,t,.,) dz

V,)=

-hi2

{MJT = (4, MT, KY) =

(a,, u,.,u,.)z dz.

-h/2

(8)

The relations between V and M, and the strains are


given by

where the stiffness matrices [S] and [D] are computed


from

2 hhlcl(k, dz

[S]=a

k=l

[D] = f

Fig. 1. Geometry and loading of the laminated plate.

k=IJhk

5
hk

rhr[&z2dz.
~I

(10)

315

Optimization of symmetric laminates for maximum buckling load


From the condition that the potential energy of
plate is stationary at equilibrium, and neglecting
pre-buckling effects, the equations governing the
axial buckling of the shear deformable laminate
obtained as

the
the
biare

k>K/2+1.
Let N,=N
and N!=A-N where
0 Q ), < 1 is the proportionality constant. The buckling load N(B) is given by
N(B) = min,.,[N,,(m,

n,

611,

(16)

where Nmnis the buckling load corresponding to the


half-wave numbers m and n in the x and y directions,
respectively. The design objective is to maximise N(B)
with respect to 8, viz.
M,.,. + My,,., - Y, = 0,

(11)

where N, and N? are the pre-buckling stress components which are shown in Fig. 1. As no simplifications are assumed on the elements of the [D] matrix,
eqn (11) includes the bending-twisting coupling as
exhibited by virtue of D,, # 0, D,, # 0.

3.

FINITE ELEMENT FORMULATION

We now consider the finite element formulation of


the problem. Let the region S of the plate be divided
into n sub-regions S, (S,E S; r = 1,2,. . . , n) such
that
l-I(u) = E II(u),
r=l

li w%Yh,

i=l

where ui is the value of the displacement


corresponding to node i and is given by
u = {I@, o{, wb,+I, +,!I}.

VeriJication

In order to verify the finite element formulation


described above, some solutions are compared with
those available in the literature. A single-layered
simply supported
square plate was modelled
with 0 = 30, 2 = 0 (uniaxial compression) and
material properties E, = 60.7 GPa, El = 24.8 GPa,
G,, = 12 GPa and v,* = 0.23. The analytical solution
for this problem is available in Ref. [27]. Table 1
illustrates the effect of the number of finite elements
on the non-dimensionalized buckling load N,, where

vector

N,a2 and

Nb = -

D,

D, =

E,h3
12(1 -

h2V21)

(14)
The

The static buckling problem reduces to a generalized eigenvalue problem of the conventional form,
viz.

WI + 4&l){uI = 0,

(17)

5. NUMERICAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION


5.1.

(13)

0 < 8 < 90,

where N(B) is determined from the finite element


solution of the eigenvalue problem given by eqn (16).
The optimization procedure involves the stages of
evaluating the buckling load N(B) for a given 0 and
improving the fibre orientation to maximize N. Thus,
the computational
solution consists of successive
stages of analysis and optimization until a convergence is obtained and the optimal angle eoptis determined within
a specified accuracy.
In the
optimization stage, the Golden Section [26] method is
employed.

(12)

where II and IIs are potential energies of the plate


and the element, respectively, and II is the displacement vector. Using the same shape functions associated with node I (i = 1, 2, . . , n), S,(x, y), for
interpolating the variables in each element, we can
write

N,,,,, & max [N(e)],


0

(15)

where [K] is the stiffness matrix and [KG] is the initial


stress matrix. The lowest eigenvalue of the homogeneous system [eqn (15)] yields the buckling load.
4. OPTIMAL DESIGN PROBLEM

The objective of the design problem is to maximize


the buckling loads N, and h$ for a given thickness h
by optimally determining the fiber orientations given
by &=(-1)+0
for k<K/2
and Ok=(-l)kO for

plate

thickness

ratio

is

specified

as

h/b = 0.01 m. The use of 256 elements for a square

plate resulted in an error of less than 0.08% as


compared to the analytical solutions. This mesh
density was accepted as providing sufficient accuracy.
Consequently, in the present study, a square plate is
meshed with 256 elements. Plates of aspect ratios
Table 1. Effect of the number of
elements of the buckling load
Number of elements

N,

10 x 10
13 x 13
16 x 16
20 x 20
Exact (Ref. [27])

25.57
25.33
25.22
25.14
25.20

316

M. Walker et al.

---_.--------

-- -,- -

55.85
FSM
F_s.C.S

c.s.cs
c.c.c.c

Fig. 2. Buckling load plotted against the ply angle


rectangular
laminates with a/b = 0.5.

for

Fig. 5. Maximum buckling load plotted against


ratio with E. = 0 (uniaxial load).

Fig.

for

Fig. 6. Optimal

other

3. Buckling

than

proportion

load

plotted against
square plates.

one are meshed


of 256 elements.

with

the ply angle

a corresponding

5.2. Numerical results


Numerical results are given for a typical T300/5208
with
E, = 181 GPa,
material
graphite/epoxy
El= 10.3 GPa, G,: = 7.17GPa and viz= 0.28. The
symmetric plate is constructed of four equal thickness
layers with 0, = - O2= - 8, = 0, = 0 and as before,
the thickness ratio is specified as h/b = 0.01. Different
combinations
of free (F), simply supported (S) and
clamped (C) boundary conditions are implemented at

8 Is
I

.50

Fig. 4. Optimal

0.75

1.00

1.25

1.50

1.75

ply angle plotted against the aspect


with i. = 0.5 (biaxial load).

ratio

the four edges of the plate. In particuIar, five different


are studied,
namely
(F, S, F, S),
combinations
and
(C, X C, S)
(& s, s, S),
(F, s, c, S),
(C, C, C, C), where the first letter refers to the first
plate edge and the others follow in an anti-clockwise
direction as shown in Fig. 1.
For each of the boundary
conditions,
three inplane load cases are considered,
namely, uniaxial
compression
(N,. = 0), biaxial compression
with
N,./N, = 0.5 and biaxial compression with N,./N, = 1.
The results presented in this section are obtained
for rectangular
plates with aspect ratios varying

1500

go(

the aspect

I
\

2.00

ply angle plotted against the aspect ratio


with ,I =0 (uniaxial load).

a/b
Fig. 7. Maximum buckling load plotted against
ratio with A = 0.5 (biaxial load).

the aspect

Optimization

of symmetric

laminates

for maximum

buckling

317

load

15
-.

8.h

0.75

1.00

1.25

1.50

1 .75

2.00

0.50

..

0.75

1.00

Fig. 8. Optimal

ply angle plotted against


with E. = I (biaxial load).

the aspect

between 0.5 and 2. The non-dimensionalized


parameter Nh is defined as

Nb=$

ratio

buckling

(18)
0

where N is the critical buckling load and E, is a


reference value having the dimension
of Youngs
modulus and is taken as E, = 1 GPa.
The dependence
of the buckling load Nb on the
fibre angle is investigated for the five cases of boundary conditions in Fig. 2 for r = 0.5, and in Fig. 3 for
r = 1. With r = 0.5 the maximum
buckling load
occurs at 0 for all the boundary cases, but this is not
so with Y = 1. It is clear that the maximum buckling
load for a given boundary condition and aspect ratio
occurs at a specific value of the fibre angle (referred
to as the optimal fibre angle) and this value can be
several times higher than the buckling load at other
fibre angles. This fact emphasizes the importance of
carrying out optimization
in design work of this
nature to obtain the best performance
of fibre composite plates.
Figure 4 shows the effect of the plate aspect ratio
r = a/b on eopt for the five cases of boundary
conditions for plates under uniaxial loading. In the
case of (F, S, F, S), the optimal fibre angle is 0 for
0.5 <r ,< 2. The case (F, S, C, S) is interesting

500 /

Y,

a/b
Fig. 9. Maximum

1.25

1.50

1.75

2.00

a/b

o/b

buckling load plotted against


ratio with 1 = I (biaxial load).

the aspect

Fig. 10. EKecl of bending

twisting coupling
ply angle.

on the optimal

because the optimal angle remains 0 between r = 0.5


and 1.79 at which point eupf jumps to 47.5 For the
case (S, S, S. S), the jump in the optimal ply angle
occurs at r = 0.8. With (C, S. C, S), Oop, displays
several jumps which occur at r = 0.67, 1.27 and 1.88.
Finally, for (C, C, C, C), cop, is non-zero for r > 1.2
after which the optimal ply angle fluctuates between
29.5 and 47
It is noted that the discontinuities that occur in O,,,
as the aspect ratio increases from 0.5 to 2 are due to
changes in the buckling modes.
The values of the maximum
buckling load N,
corresponding
to the optimal ply angles given in Fig.
4 are shown in Fig. 5. As expected, the clamped plate
gives the highest buckling loads.
The results for biaxial loading with N,,/N, = 0.5 are
given in Fig. 6. In this case, an interesting situation
occurs with discontinuities
for all the boundary conditions. For (F, S, F, S), the relationship
between I
and U,,, is worth noting. At r = 1.33. a,,, displays a
discontinuity jump to 23 , whereupon it remains flat
up to r = 2. The trends for the cases (C, S. C. S) and
(C. C, C, C) show similarities to those shown in Fig.
4, although
the number of jumps for the case
(C, C, C, C) increases. Figure 7 shows the values of
N, corresponding
to flop, shown in Fig. 6.
The results for the second biaxial loading case with
N,, N, = I are presented
in Fig. 8. The case
(F, S, F, S) does not display any discontinuity
and
0 0pc remains
between
20
and 31
The cases
(C. S, C, S) and (C. C. C, C) show similar trends to
those illustrated in Figs 4 and 6. The plates with
(F, S, C, S) have an approximate
O,,,, value of 27
between r = 0.5 and r = 1.43 at which point the
optimal ply angle jumps to 46 and then increases to
Bop,= 75. Figure 9 gives the values of N, corresponding to 8,,, shown in Fig. 8. The trends are similar to
those of the other loading cases shown in Figs 5 and
7, but as expected, the values for N,, are less than
before due to increased loading.
Finally, Fig. 10 compares the optimal ply angles of
simply supported laminates with and without bending-twisting coupling. In essence, neglecting the effect
of bending-twisting
coupling corresponds
to having

318

M. Walker

an infinite number of layers. Figure 10 indicates that


this effect is substantial (particularly around r = 0.75
and r = I .30) in the case of four-layered plates and its
neglect may lead to incorrect optimal fibre orientations, resulting in substantially reduced buckling
loads.
6. CONCLUSION

A finite element solution for the optimal design of


laminated composite plates for maximum buckling
load was presented. This formulation is based on
Mindlin-type laminated plate theory. The numerical
approach employed in the present study is necessitated by the fact that the inclusion of the bending-twisting coupling effect and the consideration of
various combinations of free, clamped and simply
supported boundary conditions rule out an analytical
approach.
The effect of optimization on the buckling load was
investigated by plotting the buckling load against the
design variable (Figs 2 and 3). The results show that
the difference in the buckling loads of optimal and
non-optimal plates could be quite substantial, emphasizing the importance of optimization for fibre
composite structures.
It is observed that optimal fibre angles display
several jump discontinuities when plotted against
the aspect ratio. The present study shows that the
number and location of these discontinuties caused
by the changes in the buckling mode, depend on
the specific boundary conditions and the biaxial
loading ratio NJ/N,. In most cases the optimal
fibre angle is quite sensitive to the value of the aspect
ratio with (F, S, F, S) plates exhibiting the least
sensitivity and (C, S, C, S) plates exhibiting the most
sensitivity.
A comparison of optimal fibre angles with and
without bending-twisting coupling (Fig. 10) showed
that this effect cannot be neglected at certain aspect
ratios. It is noted that the effect can be minimized by
using a large number of layers in the laminate
construction.
Acknowledgemenf-Mark
Walker would like to thank Peter
Metcalf for his help in writing some of the software used to
produce the results presented in this paper.

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