COMPOSITE BEAM ANALYSIS LINEAR ANALYSIS OF NATURALLY CURVED AND TWISTED ANISOTROPIC BEAMS by ~ ~ ~tl ~ j

Dist pcal The aim of this report is to present a consistent theory for the deformation of a naturally curved and twisted anisotropic beam. The proposed formulation natu-rally extends the classical Saint-Venant approach to the case of curved and twisted anisotropic beams. The mathematical model developed under the assumption of span-wise uniform cross-section, curvature and twist, can take into account any kind of elastic coupling due to the material properties and the curved geometry. The consistency of the math-model presented and its generality about the cross-sectional shape, make it a useful tool even in a preliminary design optimization context such as, for example, the aeroelastic tailoring of helicopter rotor blades. The advantage of the present procedure is that it only requires a two-dimensional discretization: thus, very detailed analyses can be performed and interlaminar stresses between laminae can be evaluated. Such analyses would be extremely time consuming if performed with standard finite element codes: that prevents thei