THE THREE-DIMENSIONAL FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF CONTACT AREA OF SYMMETRIC AND NON-SYMMETRIC LAMINATED COMPOSITE PINNED-JOINTS

This paper presents analyses for computing and evaluating the behavior of the laminated composite plate at the contact area in single lap, mechanically fastened joints. The analyses involve three dimensional finite element models performed by ABAQUS 6.4- PR11 code to evaluate the stress distribution in contact surface, separation angle, the magnitude and location of maximum radial stress. Results are determined for isotropic model and composite laminates with different layer configurations and attempts are made to validate the models with previous works. For cross ply and angle ply configurations only symmetric stacking sequences are used while for quasi-isotropic laminate both symmetric and non-symmetric models are generated. The variations of separation angles through the thickness are investigated and effects of different layer configurations are discussed. In cross-ply laminate symmetric separation about bearing plane could be found while in quasi-isotropic and angle-ply laminates non-symmetric separation occurs. Also, the separation angle is less than 90° in symmetric laminates and greater than 90° in some plies of non-symmetric laminates.

Keywords:

Composite , Finite element method , Nonsymmetric layer configuration , Contact area , Separation angle