Tailoring thermal residual stresses to maximize buckling loads in composite plates.

摘要

The effect of tailoring the thermal stresses in composite plates is studied. Traditionally thermal stresses have been seen as a problem that must be minimized to prevent premature failure. While this is a concern, thermal residual stresses can also be used to prestress a composite plate so that the plate resists buckling loads. Numerous numerical studies were performed to determine the effect of various parameters such as the temperature change the plate undergoes, the aspect ratio, boundary conditions and the size and location of stiffeners. Then plates under various loading configurations were optimized to determine the configuration that results in the largest increase in buckling load, and how much improvement is possible for each configuration. The optimized plates were then analyzed neglecting the effects of temperature and it was found that thermal residual stresses had a large effect on the modeled plate's buckling load.