Analytical determination of flexural rigidity of thin-walled pultruded composite I-beams

In this research, an analytical method is developed for calculation of flexural rigidity (EI) of thin-walled layered composite beams with any arbitrary cross-section shape using classical lamination theory (CLT). In this method, the flexural rigidity of flange laminate (the part is perpendicular to the plane of loading) and web laminate (the part is parallel to the plane of loading) is first calculated separately based on the tensile strains and deflections. Then, the flexural rigidity of whole beam is obtained by the summation of flexural rigidity of individual part. As a special case study, the flexural rigidity of a I-shaped pultruded composite beam is predicted by the developed method. The analytical results are assessed by experimental results obtained from three-point bending test performed on the E-glass/vinylester I-beams. Thus, the proposed method could be effectively used to calculate the flexural rigidity of thin-walled structures with good accuracy without doing any experiments

Keywords:

Flexural rigidity , thin-walled beams , pultruded I-beam