Mechanical properties of thin-walled composite beams of generic open and closed sections

A general analytical model for thin-walled composite beams with an arbitrary open/(or/and) closed cross section and arbitrary laminate stacking sequence i.e., symmetric, anti-symmetric as well as un-symmetric with respect to the mid plane of the laminate, is developed in the first paper. All the mechanical properties, mechanical centre of gravity and mechanical shear centre of the cross section are defined in the function of the geometry and the material properties of the section. A program "fungen" and "clprop" are developed in Fortran to compute all the mechanical properties and tested for various isotropic sections first and compared with the available results. The locations of mechanical centre of gravity and mechanical shear centre are given with respect to the fibre angle variation in composite beams. Variations of bending and torsional stiffhess are shown to vary with respect to the fibre angle orientations.