STIFFNESS ANALYSIS OF DELAMINATED COMPOSITE BEAMS USING ROLLER CLAMPS

Composites are favored over other traditional materials in many aerospace applications because of their high stiffness and strength-to-weight ratio. Taylor made material properties can be achieved by scheming the structural parameters making the material light, high strength and durable. Present work deals with a novel approach to enhance the strength of a layered delaminated composite beam using roller clamps to improve stiffness by providing uniform transverse force. Composite beam stiffness significantly degrades due to adverse environmental condition, impact loading and delamination effect. Composite structures are prone to delamination during its life span. Therefore in depth knowledge is needed to find the effect of roller clamps on the dynamic behavior of beam with varying delamination sizes. Present approach will be useful to enhance the stiffness of composite structure with delamination. The free vibration of a clamped cantilever beam is investigated, and the results are compared to those of an unclamped and undelaminated beam. The findings are supported by experimentally obtained responses (modal analysis). Furthermore, the complex activity of the laminated structure is numerically computed and the obtained data is compared to those available in open literature to ensure correctness. The laminated composite beam's static and free vibration responses are calculated using finite element simulation software (ANSYS).