Date and Time: Tuesday June 9th, 2pm – 4pm
Panel Title: Understanding and Benchmarking Transverse Shear Stiffness Calculations Across FEM Solvers
Description: When calculating the deformation and stress of composite structures, Classical Laminate Plate Theory unambiguously defines the in-plane stiffness, bending stiffness and coupling stiffness of the shell element (e.g., Abaqus' S4 element and Nastran's QUAD4 element). However, there is no consensus on how to calculate transverse shear stiffness in academia and industry. Various shear correction factors are proposed in the literature for metals. For composites, the disagreement is even larger.
Even though transverse shear is typically a second order / small effect for solid laminates, the effect could become larger depending on the loading, geometry and material. It particularly causes frustration when smeared property, a common approach in industry, is applied to analyze thick composite structures.
The objective of this technical panel is to find a way to standardize the calculation of transverse shear stiffness. It will start with the background description and findings of discrepancies among various commercial analysis solvers. The panelists will share and discuss their perspective on latest theories, research and benchmark tests. After discussion, the panel moderator and panelists will down select the most promising theories and provide a list of recommendations for verification and validation. The benchmark plan could include a list of composite structures (layups), published test data, finite element models, etc.
Panelists
- Wenbin Yu, Purdue University
- Tony Waas, Arizona State University
- Erasmo Carrera, Politecnico di Torino
- Luciano Demasi, San Diego State University
- Wenjie Xie/Ali Najafi, ANSYS