FINITE ELEMENT SIMULATION OF IMPACTED FIBROUS COMPOSITE PANELS AND EFFICIENT PREDICTION OF TRANSVERSE SHEAR STRESSES

In this paper mathematical formulations and simulations were carried out for the prediction of through-thickness stress distributions of fibrous composite panels under variable shape impactors. Considerations were given to selective specimens from aerospace industrial environment to obtain the degree of uniformity of stress distributions throughout the out-of-plane geometry. The interlaminar stresses and strains induced in ‘thin ’ laminates through application of membrane loads (i.e., in-plane loads) were also considered. Formulation was also developed for Poisson’s ratios. Finite Element Method (FEM) has received a tremendous attention in engineering and industry because of its diversity and flexibility as an analysis tool. The solutions to physical problems can be obtained very effectively and to a high degree of accuracy using FEM software packages. Therefore, the FEM was chosen to perform simulation in commercially available software ABAQUS. In-plane stresses were computed from the model and Trapezium rule was applied to calculate out-of-plane transverse shear stresses. The procedure is simple and efficient to predict 3-D transverse shear stresses from 2-D model. Results were compared with the results from the available literature and found to be in good agreement. Some of the results are shown herein in the form of tables and graphs