Stress Analysis of Composite Plate with a Crack Approaching Circular Hole

Abstract

Composite laminated plates are being increasingly used in modern engineering ap- plications, due to their high strength-to-weight and sti ness-to-weight ratios. Open- ings/cutouts are made into structures in order to satisfy some service requirements. These openings work as a stress raiser and may lead to the failure of the struc- ture/machine component. When a structure is subjeccted to cyclic loads, cracks may initiate and grow in the vicinity of stress concentration. In order to ensure safety and reliability, it is necessary to predict the behavior of stress pattern around open- ings/cutouts under the application of various types of loading conditions. In the present work, stress functions for a in nite composite laminated plate with crack approaching circular hole subjected to inplane loading have been obtained using Mushkelishivilli's complex variable approach with the help of the conformal mapping and further the Schwarz's alternating method is used to solve the problem of the dou- bly connected region. Here an attempt is made to obtain the stress intensity factor at two crack tip for various crack length and interaction e ect between crack and hole. The generalized stress function so obtained has been coded using MATLAB 7.6. Furthermore, the e ect of various parameters such as loading conditions, ber ori- entation angle, stacking sequence and material property on the stress functions have been studied. The di erent loading conditions considered here includes uniaxial, bi- axial, or shear loading at in nity.