Bending stress fields in composite laminate beams by a boundary integral formulation

Abstract

The elasticity of a composite laminate under bending loads is approached through a boundary integral formulation and solved by the boundary element method. The integral equations governing the behaviour of each layer within the laminate, are deduced using the reciprocity theorem. Exact analytical singular solutions of the generalized orthotropic elasticity, i.e. the fundamental solutions of the problem, are employed as the kernels of the integral equation. The formulation does not make any assumption as to the nature of the elastic response and it allows consideration of general section geometries and stacking sequences. The solution is obtained through the enforcement of the interface continuity conditions and the prescribed boundary conditions in such a way that all of the elasticity relations involved in the problem description are exactly satisfied. Numerical solutions for different laminate configurations are presented which show that the present approach gives accurate stress distributions with meaningful advantages and without requiring too much computational effort.