Buckling variability analysis in damaged composite laminates subjected to thermally varying environment

Abstract

The present study investigates the effect of internal defects on the composite laminated (CL) plates comprised of two distinct graphite-epoxy materials (AS4/3501-6 and T300/5208). The centrally damaged laminates stacked in two distinct lamination sequences are exposed in thermally varying environments. The CL plates are considered to experience damage in two different combinations of damage parameters. The improved first-order shear deformation theory (IFSDT) based finite element (FE) model is employed to estimate the thermal buckling of CL plates comprised of multiple fiber orientation angles and constrained to C-S-C-S and S-C-S-C boundary restrictions. The implementation of a Radial basis function network (RBFN) surrogate model has demonstrated its potential as a feasible substitute for the computationally demanding Monte-Carlo simulations (MCS) in the context of stochastic exploration. The present investigation scrutinizes the probabilistic properties of diverse materials and their associated damage characteristics. Subsequently, the RBFN-based surrogate model is employed to evaluate the likelihood of failure.