SOME STRENGTH STUDIES ON FRP LAMINATES

The usage of fibre reinforced plastics can lead to a significant reduction in the weight of structural elements. The most important design variables in laminate design are the fibre orientation angle, ply thickness and fibre volume fraction. The first ply failure strength for [0/90/ +/- 45]s laminate with different material systems and the corresponding first ply failure envelopes are presented for different in-plane loading conditions and ply orientations. The optimum biaxial stress ratio gives the highest value of the major failure load. At equal biaxial loading, all the plies of the laminate fail simultaneously in tension as well as compression for all values of laminate orientation angle.