Modified ply thickness for classical lamination theory for thin woven fibre composites

Abstract

This paper considers the applicability of classical lamination theory for woven composites for the analysis of bending behaviour of such composites. Although the Classical lamination theory is directly used for the analysis of uni-directional laminates with a good accuracy, it cannot be directly used for the analysis of bending behaviour of woven composites, because it is found that it gives a significant error margin. Therefore this paper has looked into the possible causes for that error margin and significance of the contribution from each cause to the overall error margin. This papers has identified that the sensitivity of the thickness of a tow has a significant contribution to the error margin and therefore a suitable modification factor has been introduced to reduce the error margin caused by the thickness variation. A representative unit cell model was developed to predict the stiffness, failure of fibre composites and verification of the thickness modification to Classical lamination theory.