In-plane stiffness tailoring for the improvement of buckling and strength of composite panels with cut-outs

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2012

Authors

lopes, cs (Author) Other; gurdal, z (Author) Other; camanho, pp (Author) FEUP; gomes, vs (Author) Other

Conference proceedings International

Title: European Space Agency, (Special Publication) ESA SP

12th European Conference on Spacecraft Structures, Materials and Environmental Testing

Noordwijk, 20 March 2012 through 23 March 2012

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge

Scopus - 0 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-008-80R

Abstract (EN): The traditional engineering approach to the problem of stress concentrations around large cutouts in composite aerospace structures, e.g. for windows and doors in aircraft, is to locally increase the thickness in order to lower the stress peaks. Often, this practice results in a significant increase in the weight of the structure. A more effective solution, avoiding the mass increase, is to dissipate the stress concentrations by redistributing loads to supported regions, such as frames and stiffeners, by means of fibre-steered laminates with variable in-plane stiffness. The production of composites in this format is practical nowadays due to the capabilities of advanced fibre-placement technology. In this work, the potential of the fibre-steering concept for the purpose of stress alleviation around cutouts in composite laminates is explored. Numerical studies are performed on compression and shear loaded variable-stiffness panels of different configurations and hole-to-panel size ratios in order to identify the optimal configurations in terms of buckling and first-ply failure.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 6