Theory of thin-walled composite beams with single and double-cell sections

Abstract

In the present work, a mixed beam approach that combines both the stiffness and the flexibility formulation in a unified manner has been performed to analyze the elastically-coupled composite beams with closed cross-sections. The analysis model includes the effects of elastic couplings, shell wall thickness, torsion warping, and constrained warping. The Reissner’s semi-complementary energy functional is used to derive the beam force–displacement relations. The theory is validated against detailed finite element analysis results for coupled composite beams with single and double-celled box sections. Various layup cases of box beams with bending–torsion or extension–torsion couplings are considered to evaluate whether all the significant non-classical structural effects of composites are captured in the beam theory. Good correlation of the present theory with the finite element analysis is obtained over the different cases. Numerical results showing the accuracy of the approach are demonstrated in the framework of the analysis.