Parametric study of stress distribution in bimodular curved beam

Abstract

This paper uses classical beam theory for stress analysis of bimodular material straight and curved beams. Hamilton’s principle is used to obtain the equations of motion. The stiffness parameters are calculated using equivalent stiffness methods to consider various couplings (twisting-stretching, bending-twisting coupling), and the neutral surface position is calculated by the Newton-Raphson method. Through the thickness, normal stress distributions are presented for different stacking sequences, the radius of curvature, and bimodularity ratio for simply supported boundary conditions. It is observed that, unlike unimodular materials, stress distribution for bimodular materials is different in positive and negative side bending. The parametric study showed that the increment of bimodularity ratio increases the magnitude of stress in the tensile zone but decreases in the compressive zone. The effects of couplings are more in angle-ply compared to mixed-ply and cross-ply laminates.