Analysis of Thick Skew Laminate with Elliptical Cutout Subjected to Combined Loading:Major Axis Collinear with Longer Diagonal

Materials are put to serious test when they are subjected to elevated temperatures. Estimation of thermal stresses and deformations of fiber reinforced composite plates is more complex owing to material anisotropy, especially when they are subjected to combination, of mechanical and thermal loading. Hence an effort is made to study the thermo elastic behaviour of a cross-ply laminated composite skew plate with elliptical cutout subjected to pressure and non-linearly varying temperature loading in the present analysis. Major axis ofthe ellipse collinear with longer diagonal has been taken for the present analysis. A three-dimensional heat conduction analysis in fiber reinforced composite laminates has been simulated by finite element method to get realistic temperature in the laminate under different thermal boundary conditions. A finite element method, which works on the basis of three-dimensional theory of elasticity, is employed to evaluate the stresses and deformations. The results obtained by varying the skew angle and size of the cutout are discussed. The magnitude of the in-plane normal stresses and transverse deflection due to combined loading is greatly affected by the skew angle variation and their magnitude is observed to be minimum at higher value ofthe skew angle and at higher d/l ratio. The magnitudes of interlaminar stresses are observed to be minimum at lower d/l ratio.