A new structural similitude method for laminated composite cylinders

Abstract

Similitude theory has been applied to design scaled models in many fields of engineering. For laminated composite cylinders, the ply thickness is too thin to manufacture in scaled models, leading to similitude distortion. Meanwhile, this distortion problem cannot be solved with the traditional similitude method. The present study aims to propose a new similitude method to correct the distortion caused by non-scalability of ply thickness and to establish high-precision similitude of the free vibration of laminated composite cylinders. Firstly, the complete and partial similitude relationships are deduced while the similitude distortion derived from the non-scalability of ply thickness is discussed. Then, with the analysis of similitude for energy, a new similitude method named the energy similitude correction method is proposed. Finally, this method is verified through numerical examples of various cylinders. The results show that the proposed method can solve the similitude distortion of ply thickness with high accuracy, and it can be applied to various cylinders with different ply thickness, stacking sequences and materials.