SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING OF COMPOSITE MATERIALS, vol.13, no.2, pp.121-129, 2006 (SCI-Expanded)
This paper presents an experimental and numerical investigation of the geometrically nonlinear behavior of woven E-glass-epoxy thin plates. With clamped edges, square laminated plates were subjected to static loads uniformly distributed. In numeric solution, the Total Lagrangian formulation is used to examine nonlinear deflection behavior of the plates. Deflection behavior versus successive load increments is investigated for diverse orientation angles (off-axis angle). The nonlinear results obtained experimentally and numerically arc compared with those of linear solution. In addition, stress variations at significant points of the plate are obtained by means of strain-gauge measurements experimentally, and are compared with those obtained by numerical solution. LUSAS 13.4 finite element analysis software is utilized for numerical solution. Mechanical properties of the orthotropic plate fabricated for present study were obtained by experimental tests.