Fibre steering for shear-loaded composite panels with cutouts

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2014

Authors

Gomes, VS (Author) Other; Lopes, CS (Author) Other; F.M. Andrade Pires (Author) FEUP; Gurdal, Z (Author) Other; Camanho, PP (Author) FEUP

Journal

Title: Journal of Composite Materials

Vol. 48

Pages: 1917-1926

ISSN: 0021-9983

Publisher: SAGE

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 16 Citations

Scopus - 17 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-009-JKR

DOI: 10.1177/0021998313492356

Abstract (EN): The traditional approach to mitigate problems resulting from stress concentrations around cutouts for windows and doors in aeronautical structures, either made of metallic or of composite materials, is to locally thicken the structure increasing its weight as well. A more effective solution, without weight penalties, is to reduce the peak stress by redistributing loads to supported regions of the panels such as frames and stiffeners. This can be achieved by means of fibre-steered laminates with variable in-plane stiffness. In this work, the potential of these novel designs for the purpose of stress alleviation around cutouts in composite panels is explored. The optimal configurations in terms of shear buckling and postbuckling failure responses are identified by means of parametric numerical studies. It is predicted that there are steered-fibre configurations that outperform the optimal straight-fibre ones for hole sizes up to two-thirds of the panel width.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 10