Indian Journal of Engineering & Materials Sciences Vol. 15, December 2008, pp.

452-458

Effect of fibre orientation on stress concentration factor in a laminate with central circular hole under transverse static loading
N D Mittal* & N K Jain
Department of Applied Mechanics, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal 462 007, India Received 12 April 2007; revised received 17 June 2008 The effect of fibre orientation () on stress concentration factor (SCF) in a rectangular composite laminate with central circular hole under transverse static loading has been studied by using finite element method. The percent variations in deflection with fibre orientation are also compared with deflection in laminate without hole. Studies are carried out for three D/A ratios (where D is hole diameter and A is plate width). The results are obtained for four different boundary conditions. Three different types of materials are used for whole analysis to find the sensitivity of stress concentration with elastic constants. A finite element study is made for whole analysis of laminate with a central hole under transverse static loading. Keywords: Finite element method, Stress concentration factor, Composite, Laminate, material properties, Fibre orientation, Transverse loading

A laminated composite plate with central circular hole have found widespread applications in various fields of engineering such as aerospace, marine, automobile and mechanical. Stress concentration arises from any abrupt change in geometry of plate under loading. As a result, stress distribution is not uniform throughout the cross-section. Failures such as fatigue cracking and plastic deformation frequently occur at points of stress concentration. Hence, for the design of a laminated composite plate with central circular hole, stress concentration factor plays an important role and accurate knowledge of stresses and stress concentration factor at the edges of hole under in plane or transverse loading are required. Analytical solutions are available in the literature for prediction of SCF in different types of abrupt changes in shape. Shastry and Raj1 have analysed the effect of fibre orientation for a unidirectional composite laminate with finite element method by assuming a plane stress problem under in plane static loading. Paul and Rao2,3 presented a theory for evaluation of stress concentration factor of thick and FRP laminated plate with the help of Lo-Christensen-Wu higher order bending theory under transverse loading. Xiwu et al.4,5 evaluated stress concentration of finite composite laminates with elliptical hole and multiple elliptical holes based on classical laminated plate theory. Iwaki6 worked on stress concentrations in a plate with two unequal circular holes. Ukadgaonker
__________ *For correspondence (E-mail: ndmittal@yahoo.com)

and Rao7 proposed a general solution for stresses around holes in symmetric laminates by introducing a general form of mapping function and an arbitrary biaxial loading condition into the boundary conditions. Ting et al.8 presented a theory for stress analysis by using rhombic array of alternating method for multiple circular holes. Chaudhuri9 worked on stress concentration around a part through hole weakening a laminated plate by finite element method. Mahiou and Bekaou10 studied for local stress concentration and for the prediction of tensile failure in unidirectional composites. Toubal et al.11 studied experimentally for stress concentration in a circular hole in composite plate. Younis12 investigated by reflected photoelasticity method that the assembly stress are the result of contact and bearing stresses between the bolts and member, contributes to reducing stresses around the circular holes in a plate under uniaxial tension. Peterson18 has developed good theory and charts on the basis of mathematical analysis and presented excellent mythology in graphical form for evaluation of stress concentration factors in isotropic plates with different types of abrupt change, but no results are presented for orthotropic and laminated plate. In this paper, a study of rectangular laminated composite plate with central circular hole for the effect of fibre orientation on stress concentration factor under transverse static loading is made. The analytical treatment for such type of problem is very difficult and hence the finite element method is

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adopted for whole analysis. The purpose of this research work is to investigate the effect of fibre orientations on SCF for normal stress in X, Y directions (x, y), shear stress in XY plane (xy) and von mises (equivalent) stress (eqv) in a single layer laminate plate with central circular hole. Three types of different composite materials of different material properties are used for analysis to find out the sensitivity of SCF with respect to elastic constants. The work also illustrates the variation of SCF versus D/A ratio in a lamina at different fibre orientations. The deflections in transverse direction (Uz) for different cases are also calculated. Description of Problem To study the influence of fibre orientation upon deflection and SCF for different stresses, a laminated composite plate of dimension 200 mm 100 mm 1 mm with a central circular hole of diameter D subjected to a total transverse static load of P Newton (which is uniformly distributed on whole plate) for all cases is analysed by finite element method. The analysis is carried out for three different D/A ratios. Figure 1a shows the basic model of the problem. Finite Element Analysis An eight nodded linear layered structural 3-D shell element with six degrees of freedom at each node (specified as Shell99 in ANSYS package) was selected based on convergence test and used through out the study. Each node has six degrees of freedom, making a total 48 degrees of freedom per element. In order to construct the graphical image of the geometries of the three different models for different D/A ratios, a laminated plate examined using the ANSYS (Advanced Engineering Simulation). It was necessary to input the basic geometric elements such as points, lines and arcs. Mapped meshing are used for all models so that more elements are employed

near the hole boundary. Due to the un-symmetric nature of different models investigated, it was necessary to discretize the full laminated plate for finite element analysis. Main task in finite element analysis is selection of suitable element type. Numbers of checks and convergence test are made for selection of suitable element type from different available elements and to decide the element length. Results were then displayed by using post processor of ANSYS programme. For some simple problems of plates, the finite elements results are also assessed with available theoretical and experimental results in literature and it in concluded that the finite elements results are acceptable. Figure 1b provides the example of the discretized models for D/A =0.2, used in study. Results and Discussion Numerical results are presented for three different D/A ratio as 0.1, 0.2 and 0.5. Three different orthotropic composite materials are used for analysis. The material properties are given in Table 1. Where; E, G and represent modulus of elasticity, modulus of rigidity and poissons ratio respectively. Four types of plates (a)-(d) are analysed. In plate (a) all edges are simply supported, in plate (b) one edge is
Table 1The material properties Materials Properties Ex Ey Ez Gxy Gyz Gzx xy yz zx 235 GPa 137 GPa 137 GPa 47 GPa 47 GPa 47 GPa 0.3 0.3 0.3 121 GPa 112 GPa 112 GPa 44 GPa 44 GPa 44 GPa 0.2 0.2 0.2 29.7 GPa 29.7 GPa 29.7 GPa 5.3 GPa 5.3 GPa 5.3 GPa 0.17 0.17 0.17 Boron/ aluminium Silicon carbide/ Woven glass/ ceramic epoxy

Fig. 1a Details of model analysed in study (A laminated plate with central hole under uniformly distributed static loading of P Newton in transverse direction)

Fig. 1b Typical example of finite element mesh for D/A=0.2

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fixed, in plate (c) two edges are simply supported and two edges are fixed, in plate (d) all edges are fixed. Figure 2 provides the boundary conditions at all edges of plates (a), (b), (c) and (d). The variation of SCF for different stresses and percent variation in Uz with different fibre orientations are presented in Figs 3-11. It has been noted that these are the maximum values in the plates. In case of plates (a) and (c), the maximum stress concentration for all stresses is always occurred on boundary of hole, i.e., values of SCF for different stresses are plotted for boundary of hole, where, in case of plates (b) and (d), the maximum stress concentration is occurred on supports, i.e., values of SCF for different stresses are plotted for supports.

Maximum Uz is always occurred at boundary of hole, hence, the percent variation in Uz is plotted for boundary of hole in all the cases. Variations of SCF for x, y, xy for different D/A ratios with respect to fibre orientations in plates (a), (b), (c), and (d) made of different composite materials are shown in Figs 3-5. Following observation can be

Fig. 2 Boundary conditions at all edges of plates (a), (b), (c) and (d)

Fig. 4 Variation of SCF (for x, y, xy) versus fibre orientations in plates (a), (b), (c) and (d) of silicon carbide/ceramic material

Fig. 3 Variation of SCF (for x, y, xy) versus fibre orientations in plates (a), (b), (c) and (d) of boron/aluminum material

Fig. 5 Variation of SCF (for x, y, xy) versus fibre orientations in plates (a), (b), (c) and (d) of woven glass/epoxy material

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made from Figs 3-5. In case of plate (a); for D/A=0.1 and 0.2, maximum SCF is obtained for x for almost all the values of and attaining maximum at =90, but for D/A=0.5 maximum SCF is obtained for xy for almost all the values of and attaining maximum at =90 for all materials. Figures illustrate that at any fibre orientation, SCF for x, y, xy decrease with increase of D/A ratio for all materials. It is also clear from figures that SCF for x, y, xy obtained

maximum when =90 for all D/A ratios and materials. For all D/A ratios and materials, it has been seen that SCF for y is always lesser then SCF for x at almost all the values of . Maximum value of SCF is coming as 3.5 in case of woven glass/epoxy composite material at =90 for D/A=0.1 for x. In case of plate (b); maximum SCF is obtained for xy for almost all the values of and attaining maximum value at =90 for all D/A ratios and materials. For all

Fig. 6 Variation of SCF (for eqv) versus fibre orientations in plates (a), (b), (c) and (d) of boron/aluminum material

Fig. 8 Variation of SCF (for eqv) versus fibre orientations in plates (a), (b), (c) and (d) of woven glass/epoxy material

Fig. 7 Variation of SCF (for eqv) versus fibre orientations in plates (a), (b), (c) and (d) of silicon carbide/ceramic material

Fig. 9 Percent variation in Uz versus fibre orientations in plates (a), (b), (c) and (d) of boron/aluminum material

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Fig. 10 Percent variation in Uz versus fibre orientations in plates (a), (b), (c) and (d) of silicon carbide/ceramic material

Fig. 11 Percent variation in Uz versus fibre orientations in plates (a), (b), (c) and (d) of woven glass/epoxy material

materials, it has been seen that SCF for x is not varied with D/A ratio for all values of , SCF for y is not varied with D/A ratio when changes from 0 to 75 and 105 to 180 but SCF for y is slightly varied with D/A ratio when changes from 75 to 105 and SCF for xy increases with increase of D/A ratio for all values of . Figures illustrate that the variation of SCF for x is much small with respect to and fluctuated near about 1.0 for all materials, in case of woven glass/epoxy material, it become exactly 1.0 for all values of and D/A ratios. Maximum SCF is coming as 4.7 in woven glass/epoxy composite material at =90 for D/A=0.5 for xy. In case of plate (c); for boron/aluminium and woven glass/epoxy materials, maximum SCF is obtained for xy for almost all the values of and attaining maximum at =90 for all D/A ratios. For silicon carbide/ceramic material, maximum SCF is obtained for y for all values of but variation is much small with respect to for all D/A ratios. For all materials, SCF for x increases with increase of D/A ratio and SCF for y decreases with increase of D/A ratio for almost all the values of . Maximum SCF is coming as 3.8 in woven glass/epoxy composite material at =90 for D/A=0.5 for xy. In case of plate (d); maximum SCF is obtained for xy for all values of and attaining maximum at =90 for all D/A ratios and materials. It has been seen that SCF for xy and y decrease with increase of D/A ratio and SCF for x increases with increase of D/A ratio for all values of and materials. Figures 3-5

show that variation of SCF for y is much small with respect to for all materials and in case of woven glass/epoxy, variation is negligible. Maximum SCF is coming as 3.9 in woven glass/epoxy composite material for D/A=0.2 for xy. Figures 3-5 illustrate that in case of plate (a), stress concentration for x played an important role where stress concentration for y played a significant role for all materials at any fibre orientations. For plates (b), (c) and (d), stress concentration for x and y played significant role and SCF for these stresses varied from 1.0 to 2.0 for all D/A ratios, materials and all values of . It has been seen also, that sometimes SCF obtained less then 1.0. In case of plate (d), the effect of stress concentration for x and y is almost negligible. For plates (b), (c) and (d), stress concentration for xy played an important role and has significant value for all cases and sometimes it obtained more then 4.0. It is observed that the SCF follows a symmetric trend with respect to 90 in all cases. For woven glass/epoxy laminate, SCF follows a symmetric trend with respect to 45 when orientation changes from 0 to 90 and to135 when orientation changes from 90 to 180 due to same value of Ex and Ey. Variations of SCF for eqv for different D/A ratios with respect to in plates (a), (b), (c), and (d) made of different composite materials are shown in Figs 6-8. It has been observed that, for all plates of different materials, SCF decreases with increase of D/A ratio. In case of plate (a); following observation can be

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made from figures. In case of boron/aluminium material, SCF increases continuously when changes from 0 to 15, decreases when changes from 15 to 30, again increases when changes from 30 to 75, attaining a maximum value when orientation is at 75 and then decreases when changes from 75 to 90 for all D/A ratios. In case of silicon carbide/ceramic material, SCF decreases continuously when changes from 0 to 45, attaining a minimum value when orientation is at 45 and then again increases when changes from 45 to 90, attaining a maximum value when orientation is at 90 for all D/A ratios. In case of woven glass/epoxy, SCF increases continuously when changes from 0 to 15, decreases when changes from 15 to 45, again increases when changes from 45 to 75, attaining a maximum value when orientation is at 75 and then decreases when changes from 75 to 90 for all D/A ratios. Maximum SCF are coming as 2.2 at =75, 1.9 at =90 and 2.1 at =75 for D/A=0.1 in boron/aluminium, silicon carbide/ceramic and woven glass/epoxy composite materials respectively. It is observed that the SCF for eqv also follows a symmetric trend with respect to 90 in all cases. For woven glass/epoxy laminate, SCF follows a symmetric trend with respect to 45 when orientation changes from 0 to 90 and to135 when orientation changes from 90 to 180. It is clear from figures that, for all materials and D/A ratios, maximum stress concentration occurred in case of plate (a) for all values of and for plate (a) SCF varied from 1.3 to 2.3 for different cases. It is also observed that, in case of plate (c), some significant stress concentration occurred. But in case of plates (b) and (c), the effect of stress concentration is much small, and in case of plate (d), it is almost negligible for all cases. For plate (d), the variation of SCF with respect to is also negligible for all D/A ratios and materials; SCF is fluctuated near about 1 for all cases. In case of plate (b); it has been seen that the effect of D/A ratio on SCF is negligible for all values of and materials. In case of all plates, the trend of variation of SCF with respect to is different for different material, i.e., variation of SCF depends up on elastic constants. In case of plate (a); SCF obtained always greater then 1.0 for all values of , D/A ratios and materials but in case of plates (b), (c), and (d), SCF obtained less then 1.0 in some cases. The variation of percent variation in Uz for different D/A ratios with respect to in plates (a), (b), (c), and (d) made of different composite materials are

shown in Figs 9-11. The percent variation in UZ has been calculated with respect to laminate without hole for same case. Following observation can be made from Figs 9-11. In case of plates (a), (b) and (c), Uz increases with increase in D/A ratio, but in case of plate (d) Uz increases when D/A ratio increase from 0.1 to 0.2 and then decreases when D/A ratio increase from 0.2 to 0.5 for all values of and materials. For boron/aluminium and silicon carbide/ceramic plates (a), (c) and (d), the maximum and minimum deflection occurred at =90 and =0 respectively, but in case of plate (b) maximum deflection occurred when =0 and minimum occurred when =90. In case of woven glass/epoxy material; percent variation in Uz is almost constant with respect to for all D/A ratios and plates (maximum variation is obtained up to 5%). It has been observed that maximum percent variation occurred for plate (a) and minimum occurred for plate (d). It has been also seen that, per cent variation in Uz is obtained less then 0% at some values of for all D/A ratios, plates and materials. Conclusions In general; for plates (a) and (c), the maximum stress concentration is always occurred on hole boundary and in case of plates (b) and (d), the maximum stress concentration is occurred on supports. The SCF for x, y, eqv play an important role in plate (a), a significant role in plate (c) and negligible role in plates (b) and (d). The SCF for xy plays, an important role in plates (b), (c), (d) and a significant role in plate (a). It has been observed that SCF for all stresses decrease with increase in D/A ratio, where deflection increases with increase in D/A ratio for almost all values of , materials and plates. For plates (a), (c) and (d), maximum Uz always occurred at =90 and for plate (b), maximum Uz always occurred at =0 for all D/A ratios. Maximum SCF for xy always occurred at =90 for all cases. It is also observed that SCF for all stresses and deflection follow a symmetric trend with respect to 90 fibre orientation. In case of composite materials those have same modulus of elasticity in X and Y directions SCF for all stresses and deflection follow a symmetric trend with respect to 45 when orientation changes from 0 or 90 and to135 when orientation changes from 90 or 180. In case of all plates, the trend of variation of SCF with respect to is different for different material, i.e., variation of SCF depends up on elastic constants. It has been also seen that the

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SCF is most sensitive to material properties and directly depend on the ratio of Ex/Ey and Ex/Gxy. The results obtained, show that for higher values of these ratios, SCF for all stresses may also be higher. References
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