Abstract
New concepts of lightweight components are conceived nowadays thanks to the advances in the manufacture of composite structures. For instance, mature technologies such as Automatic Fibre Placement (AFP) are employed in the fabrication of structural parts where fibres are steered along curvilinear paths, namely variable angle tow (VAT), which can enhance the mechanical performance and alleviate the structural weight. This is of utmost importance in the aerospace field, where weight savings are one of the main goals. For that reason, shell structures are commonly found in the aerospace industry because of their capabilities of supporting external loadings. Straight-fibre composite shell structures have been studied in recent decades and, now, spatially varying composite shells are attracting the attention of manufacturers. This work analyses the mechanical behaviour of VAT composite shells subjected to different external loadings and boundary conditions. The Carrera Unified Formulation (CUF) is employed to obtain the different structural models in a systematic and hierarchic manner. The outcomes of such numerical models are discussed and compared with commercial software Abaqus.
Highlights
IntroductionShells consist of curved lightweight constructions, which became very widespread in structural engineering thanks to their high performance when supporting external loads
The stress analyses of variable angle tow (VAT) shell structures subjected to different loadings are discussed
These materials were selected from existing literature concerning shell-like structures [32,44]
Summary
Shells consist of curved lightweight constructions, which became very widespread in structural engineering thanks to their high performance when supporting external loads. Such outstanding mechanical properties stem from the coupling between the membrane and flexural behaviour, induced by the curvature. The geometric characteristics of shell structures, including the initial curvatures, have a direct influence on the stiffness properties [1]. A proper design of such structures is crucial to perform accurate stress predictions under different loading and boundary conditions. The popularity of shell models is thanks to their lower computation cost compared to three-dimensional (3D) models
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