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Composite plate
Nicols Yurac
1. Introduction
In the present report, the differences between a composite-made structure and a metallic-made one are shown, studying a particular and easy case. It will be shown that, for the present case with its characteristics, the composites lead to same results but with a nice weight reduction in comparison with the metallic case.
CAMBIAR FOTO
The procedure is quite simple: given the characteristics of both materials, the first step is to determine the maximum force applicable to the metallic plate. Once this force is calculated (considering a thickness of 6 [mm] for the metallic plate), it is possible to determine how many plies (and their orientations) are going to be needed to build a composite plate, with the same width and length, that can support the maximum force previously calculated for the metallic plate.
Mechanics of Composites
Properties Elastic modulus Poisson ratio Mass Density Elastic limit
Composite plate
Value 60000 0.25 2900 190 Units MPa --Kg/m3 MPa
Nicols Yurac
As a remark, the properties of the carbon/epoxy are referred to each ply, and direction 1 is considered to be the direction of the fibers. This can be induced by comparing the higher strengths (tensile and compression) with respect to the directions 2 and 3.
2. Resolution
As it was mentioned before, the main goal is to obtain the number of plies and their orientation in order to obtain a composite-made plate, with the same dimensions as the metallic one that can support the same maximum force admissible in the initial metallic structure. To solve the problem, Samcef Field is going to be used as the tool of modeling and calculation. The first step is to build an FEM with the geometry and the boundary conditions of the problem, considering the metallic case initially to obtain the maximum force.
Mechanics of Composites
Composite plate
Nicols Yurac
mesh definition would be required. The present mesh has, as a consequence, only quadratic elements, with 11 elements along the width of the plate and 26 along its length. In figure 3 and 4 the boundary conditions are shown. These are defined in the Analysis data section of the program. In figure 3, it is possible to see the locking imposed on the two edges, along axes x and z. These locking would maintain the plate under the same displacement restrictions shown in figure 1. In figure 4, the force applied on the other extreme of the plate is shown. Since we want to obtain the maximum force, an initial value of 10 [kN] will be used. By knowing the elastic limit of the material (see table 1) and calculating the equivalent stress of the plate with 10 [kN] it is possible to obtain the maximum force by cross-multiplying. This procedure is developed further in this report. Also, in the Analysis data section the properties of the aluminum are entered (as an elastic, isotropic material), as well as the behavior desired. For the present case, it easy to see, due to the geometry and the boundary conditions, that the problem can be perfectly studied using shell behavior on the plate.
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Mechanics of Composites
Composite plate
Nicols Yurac
Once the calculation is done, the displacements and an equivalent stress equal to 3.3 [MPa] are found. These 2 results are shown in figure 5 and 6 respectively.
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Mechanics of Composites
Composite plate
Nicols Yurac
From figure 4 it is possible to see that the displacements are consistent with the imposed boundary conditions. In figure 5, the equivalent stress for the lower skin is shown. It is important to note that, for the present case, it is not relevant if the lower or upper skin is chosen, since the force acts over these two skins equally. Now, with the equivalent stress calculated, it is possible to see the actual maximum force applicable on the metallic plate. The equivalent stress is 3.3 [MPa], which is much lower than the elastic limit of the material (190 [MPa]). This means that the imposed force of 10 [kN] is actually lower than the maximum force. By cross multiplying, the maximum force is then obtained:
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Mechanics of Composites
Composite plate
Nicols Yurac
Fmax =
y eq
Where F is the force imposed in the FEM, eq is the equivalent stress found previously and y is the elastic limit of the material.
Now, because in this case all stresses in any other direction than the fiber (direction 1) can be neglected, the Tsai-Wu criterion can be rewritten simply as:
2 F11 F111 1
Where:
F1
1 1 XT XC
; F11
1 X T XC
Solving this inequation gives a limit number of 1 = 1120 [MPa] in order to reach the failure. Then, knowing that the height of the plate is equal to 50 [mm], the thickness of the plate is obtained as:
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Mechanics of Composites
Composite plate
Nicols Yurac
F max ht
1120[ MPa ]
570[ ] kN 50 [ ] t mm
t 0. 001018m ] 1. [ ] [ 018 mm
Finally, knowing that each ply has a thickness of 0.125 [mm], the number of plies requires is equal to 8.14, which means that if we build the plate with 8 plies, it would fail. For this reason, the plate will have 9 plies, with a total thickness of 1.125 [ mm] and the whole laminate will have its fibers oriented in the direction where the force is applied (i.e. direction 1 is the same as direction x). Doing the same procedure with the Tsai-Hill and the Hashin criteria results with the same final conclusion: a 9 plies laminate is required in order to support the maximum force that a metallic plate can resist. Now that the number of plies was established, the laminate can be created. Having defined the characteristics of one ply, we select a composite shell behavior for the face and define the laminate. Figure 6 shows how the laminate was defined in the software. It can be seen the 9 plies, all oriented to the local x axis.
It is important to take into account the orientation of the fiber in the local coordinates with respect of the general coordinates of the problem, This means that the local x direction (direction 1 in the numerical notation) should coincide with the general x direction; while the local z direction (direction 3 in the numerical notation) should be the y direction in the general coordinates. The next picture shows that the orientation of the
material over the face accomplishes the previous requirements.
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Mechanics of Composites
Composite plate
Nicols Yurac
Once all of the conditions are defined it is possible to obtain the results. Figures 8 to 10 show the result using a model with 9 plies with the Tsai-Wu, Tsai-Hill and Hashin criteria respectively. It is possible to see that the results obtained with Samcef Field are consistent with what was exposed before, obtaining a final value for each of the criteria lower than 1.
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Mechanics of Composites
Composite plate
Nicols Yurac
Fig. 10 Results of the Hashin criterion (considering matrix and fibers) using 9 plies
It is also important to note that, due to the characteristics of the problem, the three criteria shows very similar results. Also, in order to corroborate the correct number of plies, the same procedure was done considering 8 plies. Figure 11 shows the results for this case using the Tsai-Wu criterion. It is clearly seen that the criterion now shows that the material failed. Once again, similar results were obtained through the other 2 criteria.
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Mechanics of Composites
Composite plate
Nicols Yurac
It is possible now to calculate the maximum force that the plate can resist. Knowing that at 1 = 1120 [MPa] the plate will fail, as it was previously explained, the force that will lead to that stress is then calculated as:
Fmax, comp ht
1120[ MPa ]
This force is considerably higher than the maximum obtained with the metallic plate (570 [kN]), gaining a 10.5% in the maximum force now admissible. Figure 12 corroborates this, showing the results when a force of 630 [kN] is applied. It can be seen that the criterion is practically equal to 1 over the plate. Again, the same behavior is present for the other criteria.
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Mechanics of Composites
Composite plate
Nicols Yurac
Fig. 12 Results of the Tsai-Wu criterion using 9 plies and the critical force
A considerable reduction in both the mass and the volume of the plate is obtained, being the most relevant the 87.72% mass loss for the composite plate respect to the metallic one. This is another clear advantage of the composite material at least, of course, for the studied case.
3. Conclusions
The advantages of using a composite material were shown through a simple example. Mainly, the possibility of supporting conditions applicable to a metallic plate with considerable less mass and volume was demonstrated. However, the simplicity of the present case cannot be extrapolated for any case; a profound analysis for each specific application desired should be done in order to define the best option. For this reason, other factors should be considered too, i.e. the cost of each material. A FEM model built in Samcef Field was used to accomplish this objective. For the present case, the selection of the failure criteria was not relevant due to the characteristics of the problem. Nevertheless, for more complex cases, the criteria selection is a fundamental step of the whole modeling process.
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