THE S-VERSION OF THE FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD FOR MULTILAYER LAMINATES

A methodology has been developed to accurately resolve the stress field in the vicinity of free edges as well as the overall response of laminated plates without significantly affecting the computational cost. This is accomplished by enriching a set of classical smooth interpolants throughout the thickness direction with C0 continuous displacement interpolants (piecewise continuous strain field) in the regions where the most critical behaviour is anticipated. C0 continuity of the displacement field is maintained by imposing homogeneous boundary conditions on the superimposed field in the portion of the boundary which is not contained within the boundary of the problem. Numerical experiments for both cylindrical bending and uniform extension of cross-ply laminates are presented to validate the present formulation.