The prediction of failure envelopes and stress/strain behavior of composite laminates: comparison with experimental results

Two theoretical models were used by Sun and Tao [Comp. Sci. Technol. 58 (1998) 1125] in Part A of the exercise to predict the strength and stress/strain curves for a number of test problems. The strength model was based on linear elasticity in conjunction with a ply-discount method using parallel spring stiffness reduction, and the stress/strain curves were predicted by the linear model and a non-linear model incorporating simplified shear-lag analysis and an ABAQUS finite-element package. This paper provides a description of the correlation between experimental results provided by the organizers of the 'failure exercise' and the theoretical predictions, published in Part A for (a) biaxial failure envelopes of [0degrees] unidirectional and [0degrees/+/-45degrees/90degrees](s), [+/-30degrees/90degrees](s) and [+/-55degrees], multi-layered composite laminates, and (b) stress/strain curves for [0degrees/+/-45degrees/90degrees](s), [+/-55degrees](s), [0degrees/90degrees](s), and [+/-45degrees], under uniaxial and biaxial loadings. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.