Effect of dropped plies on the strength of graphite-epoxy laminates

Global shared-layer blending method for stacking sequence optimization design and blending of composite structures

“…From the mechanical perspective, ply-drops break the load path in the structure, thus cause out-of-plane stress concentrations in tapers which may lead to inplane delamination. Moreover, discontinuity of layers causes loss of integrity as well as increases the manufacturing difficulty and cost [10][11][12].…”

Suppression of Delamination at Ply Drops in Tapered Composites by Ply Chamfering

“…In many applications involving optimally designed structures, it is desirable to reduce the thickness of components gradually as the load carrying requirement decreases [1]. An example of such a concept is in the design of helicopter flexbeams, where from stiffness considerations, the design of the structural member requires significant changes in the flapwise bending compliance along *Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.…”

Tensile fatigue behavior of tapered glass fiber reinforced epoxy composites containing nanoclay

“…The other group focused on identifying failure mechanisms associated with tapered composite structures. A few studies [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] covered a variety of aspects such as predicting the onset and growth of delamination, the determination of the interlaminar stresses in the area of ply drop-offs, the estimation of strain-energy release rate related with delamination inside the tapered area, and the modeling of delamination development by using finite element analysis.…”