Free Edge Effects in Sandwich Laminates Under Tension, Bending and Twisting Loads

Abstract

An accurate analytical solution for predicting the free edge effects in sandwich laminates under tension, bending and twisting loading is presented. The recently developed mixed-field multiterm extended Kantorovich method (MMEKM) has been used to obtain the solution of the governing equations, which are developed using the Reissner-type variational principle. The present mixed-field approach enables the exact and point-wise satisfaction of traction-free edge and interlaminar continuity conditions for displacements and stresses. The numerical results presented for different loadings and lay-up show rapid convergence of the iterative series solution. The comparison of the present results with the detailed FE solution shows good agreement. The present solution captures the singularity of stresses in the free edge region by showing the rise in its peak magnitude with the number of terms in the solution. The presented accurate 3D elasticity based solution can act as a useful benchmark for assessing the accuracy of solutions obtained from other approximate methods.