Experimental Study on Behavior of GFRP Stiffened Panels under

Compression
Pradeep Kankeria PK Ganesh Mahidharb , S. Suriya Prakashc and M. Ramjid
a &c

b,d

Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, India

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, India

ABSTRACT
Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) materials are extensively used in the aerospace and marine industries because
of their high strength and stiffness to weight ratio and excellent corrosion resistance. Stiffened panels are commonly used
in aircraft wing and fuselage parts. The present study focuses on the behavior of composite stiffened panels under
compressive loading. With the introduction of stiffeners to unstiffened composite plates, the structural stiffness of the
panel increases resulting in higher strength and stiffness. Studies in the past have shown that the critical structural failure
mode under compressive loading of a stiffened composite panel is by local buckling. The present study attempts to
evaluate the mechanical behavior of composite stiffened panels under compression using blade stiffener configuration
and in particular on the behavior of the skin- stiffener interface through experimental testing. A novel test fixture is
developed for experimental testing of GFRP stiffened panels. A non-contact whole field strain analysis technique called
digital image correlation (DIC) is used for capturing the strain and damage mechanisms. Blade stiffeners increased the
strength, stiffness and reduced the out-of plane displacement at failure. The failure of both the unstiffened and stiffened
panels was through local buckling rather than through material failure. DIC was able to capture the strain localization
and buckling failure modes.

1. INTRODUCTION
Structural efficiency and durability is of primary concern in any type of structures. The development of light weight and
highly efficient structural components are desirable. GFRP possess high strength-to-weight ratio and high stiffness-toweight ratio compared to conventional materials. The use of laminated composite provides flexibility to tailor different
properties of the structural elements to achieve higher strength and stiffness requirements. FRPs can be shaped into
forms that are difficult or impossible using conventional steel materials. This flexibility stems from the virtually limitless
combination of ply materials, ply orientations, and ply stacking sequences possible when constructing a laminate
material.Along with the superior mechanical properties and chemical inertness it makes them a suitable alternative to
aluminum and steel material for construction of marine structures such as ship hull, offshore oil platforms. In typical ship
building, the plating forms the watertight skin of the ship that contributes to the longitudinal strength and resists
shear.Stability of the plate increases with the increase in the thickness of the plate but a more economical solution is
obtained by keeping the thickness of the plate as small as possible and increasing the stability by introducing stiffeners.
Stiffened plates are the most commonly used structural elements, forming the deck, bottom hull, side shells, bulkheads
and offshore oil platforms. Hence, it is very essential to study their behaviour under the action of different combinations
of loading.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
The study of buckling of laminated composite panels has a relatively short history in comparing with isotropic,
homogeneous plates. Stroud and Agranoff [1976] have reported that the tailoring of Fiber arrangement and stiffeners
results in large mass savings especially in panels subjected to shear loadings. Leissa [1987] presented an explicit review
and a brief overview of considerations involved in buckling of composite panels. In order to clearly understand the
buckling behaviour of composite panels many researchers used numerical methods like FEA [Kim 1996; Altenbach,

2004; Kolakowski and Kubiak 2005]. The failure processes in composites are not as well understood as in metals.
Previous investigations of the failure of secondary bonded structures were conducted with specimens cut from a full-size
panel to verify integrity of the bond line between the skin and flange or frame (Minguett et al. 1993). Stiffened panel has
got lot of applications in marine structures and usually they have cut outs for access to damage assessment or hydraulic
cum electrical wirings [Curtis et al. 2002].
In general, failure occurs at lower compressive loads far below the ultimate static strength of the composite material. The
stiffener plays an important role in the damage initiation and propagation [Curtis et al. 2002]. In case of stiffened panel
under higher compressive load, it is generally observed that delamination initiates at skin/stiffener resulting in stiffener
debonding [Wisnom et al. 2010]. And finally it leads to panel failure under buckling. It has been observed that ply
splitting is a key mechanism that dictates the performance and failure of skin/stiffened structures. During compression,
the large out-of-plane deformations that develop during post buckling will lead to delaminating forces at the
stiffener/skin interface, ultimately leading to stiffener debonding and panel failure [Meeks et al. 2005]. They used Moir
interferometry analysis to visualize the buckling mode shape. Further, cut out complicates the failure process resulting in
a lower compressive strength. Recently, researchers have carried out full field strain measurement over the panel mainly
to capture the localized effects in order to identify local zone of damage. Moreover, as the defects grows with load it
introduces asymmetry in the strain field and one could track the impact of damage progression on the load transfer which
is very important from damage tolerant design. Studies on behavior of Stiffened panels under compressive loading is
very limited and needs to be carefully studied.

3. FABRICATION OF GFRP PANEL

The length and breadth of stiffened panelswere kept constant at 300mm and 200mm for all panels. Two stiffenerswere
spaced at 100mm along the longitudinal direction.The length and thickness of stiffener are 280mm and 5mm
respectively. The fabrication of stiffened composite plates is generally carried out by attaching the stiffeners to the flange
plate through adhesive bonding. This can potentially lead to stiffener debonding mode of failures before reaching the full
strength. In order to avoid such failure, the GFRP composite stiffened plate specimens are fabricated by hand layup
process using glass fiber bi-directionalmathaving a weightof 610gsm andmatrixesmadefrom epoxyresinLY556mixedwithhardenerHY-951(Huntsman).The resinandhardeneraretakenintheratioof10:1byweight.as shown in Fig.1.The layer
sequence of stiffened panel and unstiffened panel shown in Fig.2. For unstiffened panel we placed 8 layer fiber and resin
and for stiffened panel first we made plate of 6 layer then we attached stiffener of size 300mmX25mm by 2 layers of
reinforcement.The mechanical properties of GFRP obtained through coupon tests are shown in Table.1

251666432

a) Applying Resin b) Applying bi-directional Glass Fiber c) hand lay-up process d) Finishing of Panel
Figure1.Fabrication Process of GFRP Stiffened Panel

251666432251667456
200mm
8 layers=4.8mm
thickness
4+2+2=8layers (4.8mm thickness)

25mm

50mm

100mm
200mm

50mm
m

0.6x6=3.6m
m

Figure 2: layer sequence of GFRP panel

TABLE.1 Mechanical Properties of GFRP
Sl.no

Property of GFRP

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

Longitudinal Modulus , E11(GPa)

Transverse Modulus , E22(GPa)
In-plane Poissons ratio,12
Out-plane Poissons ratio, 23
In-plane Shear Modulus , G12 (MPa)
Out-plane Shear Modulus , G23 (MPa)
Longitudinal Tensile Strength , XT (MPa)
Transverse Tensile Strength , YT (MPa)
Ultimate Failure strain (exx)
Ultimate Failure strain (eyy)
In-plane Shear Strength , S12 (MPa)

Value
26.31
26.31
0.29
0.29
3.48
4.97
698.95
698.95
0.0400
0.076
52.33

4. TEST SET UP
A novel test setup up is developedfor testing the panels under pure compression. The test specimen was positioned into
grooves of the supports in the test rig. Proper seating is ensured with the contact of loading pad for the application of
axial compression. A series of GFRP panels (two with and without stiffener) were tested in MTS fatigue machine of
capacity 100kN.Loading was applied in displacement control mode at the rate of 0.01mm/sec.Two unstiffened panels of
size 200mm x 300mm were fabricated. Two stiffened panels of size 200mm x 300mm were fabricated with
astiffenerspacing of 100mm apart. 3D-DIC technique is usedto get the strain field on whole area. Fig.3 shows the
experimental setup for 3D- DIC.DIC is an innovative full field non-contact optical technique used for measuring strain
and displacement in components over a wide range of length scales. It is a versatile technique that is now being used
extensively in experimental mechanics in a diverse range of applications like high temperature strain mapping, crack tip
and crack propagation studies, material characterization and deformation of large structures. This technique is well suited
for the characterization of material properties both in the elastic and plastic ranges. DIC enables non-contact surface
strain measurement of the entire specimen during the test. If this technique uses only one camera then 2D strain analysis
can be carried out and 3D strain analysis can be done by simultaneous usage of two cameras which is termed as
stereoscopic imaging.

Experimental set up involving 3D DIC (1)MTS Fatigue testing machine (100 kN capacity) (2) User Interface for operating
the machine (3)CCD Cameras (4)LED light sources (5)Image grabbing system (6)Tripod
Figure 3: Set-up for 3D-Digital Image Correlation

5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The average load versus of axial deformation of stiffened and unstiffened GFRP panels are shown in Fig.4 (a). Blade
stiffened configuration is used in this study. Two samples were tested for each configuration. The ultimate load for
stiffened and unstiffened panel obtained from peak of load and axial deformation plot based on test results. Addition of
stiffener increased the stiffness by 40% and ultimate load by 30%. The variation of ultimate load versus strain in (eyy)
isshown in Fig.4(b).For the ultimate load of unstiffened panel (22kN),the out of plane deformation of unstiffened and
stiffened panelsare shown inFig.5 (a) andFig.5 (b)respectively. It is clearly shown that the stiffener helps in reduction of
out-of-plane deformation.The strain in exxand strain in eyy is compared and shown in Fig.6 and Fig. 7 respectively at a
load of 22kN (ultimate load of unstiffened panel). The strains at failure on both specimen were much less than the
ultimate strain observed in the coupon tests. This indicates that specimen failed throughinstability in buckling mode as
shown in Fig.8(a) and 8(b) for both the unstiffened and stiffened panels.

(a)Load/axial deformation curve

(b) Load/strain (eyy) curve

Figure.4. Comparison of Performances of Stiffened and Unstiffened Panels

(b) Stiffened Panel

(a) Unstiffened Panel

Figure 5. Comparison of Out-of Plane Displacement Level at 22kN

(a)Unstiffened Panel

(a)Unstiffened Panel

(b) Stiffened Panel

Figure 6. Strain (exx) direction at load of 22kN

(b) Stiffened Panel

Figure 7. Strain (eyy) direction at load of 22kN

(a)Unstiffened Panel

(b) Stiffened Panel

Figure 8. Comparison of Failure Modes

6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

A total of four GFRP panels were tested with and without blade stiffeners under axial compression. The presence of
blade stiffenerincreasedstiffness of unstiffened panel by 40%. The ultimate strength increased by 30%. Blade stiffener
also reduced the out-of-plane displacement by 68% compared to that of unstiffened panel. The failure strain observed in
both stiffened and unstiffened panelswere found to be much lesser than that of the ultimate failure strain in coupon tests.
This indicated that failure of the GFRP panels wasgoverned by buckling and not by material failure. DIC was able to
capture the strain localization and local buckling failure modes in tested panels.Optimization of stiffener configurations
for improved performance is scope for further study.

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