A Numerical Study of the Effect of Component Dimensions on the Critical Buckling Load of a GFRP Composite Strut under Uniaxial Compression.

Quoc Hoan Doan,Ngoc Long Tran,Duc-Kien Thai

doi:10.3390/ma13040931

Abstract

In the practical design of thin-walled composite columns, component dimensions should be wisely designed to meet the buckling resistance and economic requirements. This paper provides a novel and useful investigation based on a numerical study of the effects of the section dimensions, thickness ratio, and slenderness ratio on the critical buckling load of a thin-walled composite strut under uniaxial compression. The strut was a channel-section-shaped strut and was made of glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) composite material by stacking symmetrical quasi-isotropic layups using the autoclave technique. For the purpose of this study, a numerical finite element model was developed for the investigation by using ABAQUS software. The linear and post-buckling behavior analysis was performed to verify the results of the numerical model with the obtained buckling load from the experiment. Then, the effects of the cross-section dimensions, thickness ratio, and slenderness ratio on the critical buckling load of the composite strut, which is determined using an eigenvalue buckling analysis, were investigated. The implementation results revealed an insightful interaction between cross-section dimensions and thickness ratio and the buckling load. Based on this result, a cost-effective design was recommended as a useful result of this study. Moreover, a demarcation point between global and local buckling of the composite strut was also determined. Especially, a new design curve for the channel-section GFRP strut, which is governed by the proposed constitutive equations, was introduced to estimate the critical buckling load based on the input component dimension.

Highlights

Due to its many advantages, such as low density, high strength, and flexible manufacturing, fiber-reinforced composite materials (e.g., glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP), carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP), etc.) have been widely used over the past few decades
The results indicate that geometric amplitude on the post-critical buckling load was presented in Figure the post-critical load significantly decreased when the imperfection amplitude increased from
The thickness, studied in this paper, i.e., t f = tw = 2.08mm, had a thickness that was 36.4% away from the optimal thickness. These results provided an effective tool to make an appropriate decision when selecting a thickness for the best buckling resistance of a GFRP

Summary

Introduction

Due to its many advantages, such as low density, high strength, and flexible manufacturing, fiber-reinforced composite materials (e.g., glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP), carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP), etc.) have been widely used over the past few decades. Many industrial fields are applying these materials in areas such as aerospace, aircraft, automotive, and especially civil engineering [1,2,3,4]. In the practical civil engineering field, fiber-reinforced polymer composite materials are often used as profile-type beams or columns. They are applied in various structures, such as bridges, buildings, off-shore structures, etc. The profile composite columns represent the thin-walled structures in which their stability is an important factor and is intensely investigated in research and practice. The buckling of columns is a complicated problem

Methods

Results

Conclusion