CHAPTER-2

LITERATURE REVIEW
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Composite plates are broadly used as structural components in many branches of modern
technology, namely mechanical, aerospace, electronic and marine. The most commonly used
plate theories are Kirchhoff or classical laminated plate theory for thin plate, Mindlin-
Reissene or First order shear deformation theory for moderate plates, Levinson’s theory or
Third order shear deformation theory. CLPT is the simplest plate theory, which the effect of
transverse shear deformation that results in the under estimation of transverse deflection of
plate. FSDT is suitable for analyzing moderately thick plates. However this theory does not
satisfy the stress-free boundary conditions on the surface of plate so it requires shear
correction factors. For the analysis of the thick plates TSDT is used.

2.1 BRIFE REVIEW OF THE AVAILABLE LITERATURE ON COMPOSITE

MATERIALS USING LEVY SOULTION OF HIGHER ORDER THEORY

J.N. Reddy (1979) has generalised the Mindlin’s plate theory for isotropic plates to
laminated anisotropic plate and included shear deformation and rotary and inertia effects. He
has presented the finite element solution for rectangular plates of anti-symmetric angle ply
laminates whose material properties are typical of the highly anisotropic composite material.
He used two set of materials properties that are typical of higher modulus fibre reinforced
composite to show the parametric effect of plate aspect ratio length to the thickness ratio,
number of layers and lamination angle.

STUDIES ON STATIC BENDING BEHAVIOUR OF COMPOSITE LAMINATED

PLATES:

E.Reissner, (1947) has refined his own theories with the introduction of correction
factors similar to Timoshenko’s beam theory which are determined by matching result of the
approximation theory with the exact solution to the static problems.

E.Reissner, Stavsky.Y (1961) improved the CLPT by including the influence of

bending-extensional coupling in anti-symmetrical laminate. Using the CLPT they discussed
the effect of the coupling phenomenon between in-plane stretching and transfer bending
which does not occur in the theory of homogenous plates and it was not considered in earlier
work for the plate consisting of two orthotropic sheets of equal thickness, which are
laminated in such a way that the axis of symmetry enclose an angle θ ‫٭‬with the (x, y) axes in
one sheet and an angle θ in the other sheet. Using this theory Whitney and Liessa 1969 solved
the number of problems relating to the bending, vibration and stability of coupled laminates.
 Stavsky (1959) has introduced first the shear deflection into laminated plate theory
and evaluated mechanical behaviour for various laminated stacking sequences.

E.Reissner, (1944) is the first to provide consistent theory which incorporates the
effect of shear deformation. The basic assumption used by Reissner explained various forms
of stress distribution across the thickness. A special variational theorem is used to determine
both the equations of equilibrium in terms of stress-strain relations and in term of resultants
and assumed displacements functions.

N.J.Pagano (1968) studied an isotropic laminated composite where the ratio of “E” to
shear modulus (G) can be very large, however a theory analogous to those presented by
Reissner (1945) and Mindlin (1951) for isotropic plates assumes greater importance.

P.C.Yang, Nooris.C.H et al (1966) extended Mindlin’s theory for homogeneous plates

to laminates consisting of an arbitrary number of bonded anisotropic layers. Although this
approach is much less Cumbersome than that of Ambartsumyan, its consequences have not
been explored because of lack of solution to specific boundary value problems and he only
considered frequency equations for the propagation of harmonic waves in a two layer
isotropic plate.

N.J.Pagano (1969) studied the mechanical response of composite laminates by

considering the problem of cylindrical bending of bi-directional (0°-90°) laminates. Exact
solutions with in the frame work of the linear theory of elasticity were developed and
compared with the respective solutions of CLPT.

J.M.Whitney (1969) has presented a theory for laminated plates which includes the
effect of transverse shear deformation. Solutions have been obtained for bending fundamental
vibration frequencies and buckling of simply supported plates having special construction of
symmetric and anti-symmetric laminates. Also closed form solutions are obtain for bending
flexural vibrations and buckling loads of simply supported rectangular plates of special
construction and he showed that shear deformation can significantly gross plate response for
highly anisotropic laminate.
 S.A.Ambartsumyan (1969) developed cumbersome approach to define transverse
shear stress that satisfies the required continuity conditions at the layer interfaces. This
bending theory allows for the specification of three boundary condition per edge but the
analysis is restricted to laminates consisting of orthotropic layer stacked systematically with
respect to mid plane of the plate and having the axes of material symmetry coincides with the
plate co-ordinate axes.

Lo K.H and Chirstensen R.N et al (1977), derived a theory of plate deformation

which accounts for the effects of transverse shear deformation, transverse normal strain and
non-linear distribution of the in-plane displacement with respect to the thickness coordinate.
The theory is compared with lower order plate theories through application to a particular
problem involving a plate acted upon by a sinusoidal surface pressure. It is found that when
the ratio, of the characteristic length of a load pattern to the plate thickness is of the order of
unity, lower order theories are inadequate and they also extended the theory developed in
(1977) to model the behaviour of laminated plates. Through comparison with elastic solution
they have shown that the present theory correctly models the effect not attainable from the
classical theory.

Kant T, Owen D.R.J and Zienkiewicz (1982), attempted a general finite element
formulation for the plate bending problem based on a higher-order displacement model and
three dimensional state of stress and strain. The theory incorporates linear and quadratic
variation of transverse normal strain, transverse shearing strain and stress respectively
through the thickness of the plate. The quadrilateral element from the family of two
dimensional continuous isoparametric element thin situations. The effect of full, reduced and
selective integration scheme on final numerical result is examined.

Lawrence W. Rehfield and Rao Valisetty R (1983), developed a omprehensive theory

for plannar bending of laminated. This theory influences, laminated resin matrix composite
structure to exhibit more pronounced transverse shear deformation. Research shows that there
are additional non-classical influences that also affect bending related behaviour of
composite. They include the consequences of section warping and its non-classical axial
stress contribution and transverse normal strain.

Phan N.D. and Reddy J.N. (1985), used a higher order shear deformation theory to
analyze laminated anisotropic composite plates for deflection, stresses, bending loads. The
theory accounts for parabolic distribution of the transverse shear stress and requires no shear
correction coefficients. For plates with special lamination schemes and simply supported
boundary condition, exact solution are obtained and compared with the classical plate theory
and 3-dimensional elasticity solution. A displacement finite element model of the theory is
also developed . The effects of shear deformation, coupling between and extension and
material anisotropy on the response of laminated composite plates are also investigated.

Simitses G.J., Sallam S el al (1985), analyzed a simple one dimensional model for
predicting delamiantion bending loads. This model is employed to predict critical loads for
delamiantion homogenous plates with both simply supported and clamped ends. And for
moboth the sets of boundary condition, the effect of delamiantion position, size and thickness
are studied extensively. In the result they have revealed that for certain geometries the
bending loads can serve as a measure of load carrying capacity of the delaminated
configuration and in other cases, the bending loads is very small and delamiantion growth is a
strong possibility depending on the toughness of the material.

Kant T and Pandya B.N (1998), developed a higher order theory which satisfies zero
transverse shear stress condition on the bounding planes of generally laminated fiber
reinforced composite plates, subjected to transverse loads. The displacement model accounts
for non-linear distribution of in-plane displacement components through the plate thickness
and the theory requires no shear correction coefficient. A C°continuous displacement finite
element formulation is presented and the coupled membrane flexure behaviour of laminated
plates is investigated. The simple iso-parametric formulation is developed which is capable
of evaluating transverse shear and transverse normal stress by using the equilibrium
equations. They have also presented a C° continuous displacement finite element formulation
of a higher- order theory for a flexure of thickness of thick arbitrary laminated composite
plates under transverse loads. The displacement model accounts for non-linear and constant
variation of in-plane and transverse displacement respectively through the plate thickness.
The assumed displacement model eliminates the use of shear correction coefficients. The
displacement model is chosen to bring out the effects of neglected transverse normal
stress/strain but the same time retaining higher-order in-plane degrees of freedom in the
formulation.

Kant T and Gupta A (1988), developed a higher order shear deformation beam theory.
It is based on a higher order displacement model and incorporates linear and quadratic
variation of transverse normal strain and transverse normal cross-section of the beam is
automatically incorporated in the mathematical models.

Pandya B.N and Kant T(1988), presented a finite element formulation for a flexure of
generally orthotropic plates based on a higher-order displacement model and a 3-dimensional
state of stress and strain. The higher order theory incorporates linear variation of transverse
normal strain/stress and parabolic variation of transverse shear strain through the thickness of
the plate. The quadrilateral element from the family of 2-dimensional C° continuous
isoparametric lagrangian element is developed as general orthotropic higher order element.
The performance of this element is evaluated on square plates with different support
condition under uniform distributed and centre point loads. The numerical results of are
compared with thin plates, elasticity and Mindlin/Reissner solution.