Failure Strength of Nonlinearly Elastic Composite Laminates Containing a Pin Loaded Hole

Abstract

A method is presented for calculating the failure strengths and failure modes of composite laminates containing a pin loaded hole for materials exhibiting nonlinearly elastic behavior. The analysis follows that proposed by Chang, Scott, and Springer for linearly elastic composites with two notable exceptions: a) the shear stress-shear strain relation in each ply is taken to be nonlinear with the form proposed by Hahn and Tsai, and b) the Yamada-Sun failure criterion is modified to include nonlinear effects. Numerical results, generated using a nonlinear finite element scheme, were compared to data. These comparisons show that for laminates exhibiting nonlinear behavior the present analysis provides the failure strengths and failure modes more accurately than the previous method employing a linear stress-strain analysis.