Modeling of cylindrical composite shell structures based on the Reissner’s Mixed Variational Theorem with a variable separation method

Abstract

This work deals with the modeling of laminated composite and sandwich shells through a variable separation approach based on a Reissner's Variational Mixed Theorem (RMVT). Both the displacement and transverse stress fields are approximated as a sum of products of separated functions of the in-plane coordinates and the transverse coordinate. This approach yields to a non-linear problem that is solved by an iterative process, in which 2D and 1D problems are separately considered at each iteration. In the thickness direction, a fourth-order expansion in each layer is used. For the in-plane description, classical Finite Element method is used. Numerical examples involving several representative shell configurations (deep/shallow, thick/thin) are addressed to show the accuracy of the present method. It is shown that it can provide quasi-3D results less costly than classical LW computations. In particular, the estimation of the transverse stresses, which are of major importance for damage analysis, is very good.

Effect of large deflection on laminated composite plates

“…Ye et al developed a high-performance semi-analytical numerical model to analyze the bending responses of the angle-ply composite laminated cylindrical shells with the fiber-reinforced layers using the scaled boundary finite element method [4]. Vidal et al studied the modeling of laminated composite and sandwich shells through a variable separation approach based on Reissner's Variational Mixed Theorem [5]. Sahoo et al analyzed the geometrically nonlinear deflection responses of glass/epoxy composite flat/curved shell panel structure theoretically with the help of three different displacement field kinematics and Green-Lagrange strain-displacement relation [6].…”