Experimental and numerical study on buckling effects of woven fiber laminated composite plates in hygrothermal environment

Abstract

The present study deals with the parametric effects of geometry and lamination parameters on buckling analysis of industry driven woven fiber glass/epoxy composite plates subjected to uniform temperature and moisture experimentally and comparing them with the predictions using finite element method. Rectangular woven glass fiber: epoxy composite specimens were fabricated using weight fraction of 55:45 by hand layup method. The specimens were hygrothermally conditioned in a humidity cabinet where the conditions were maintained at a temperature of 323K and relative humidity (RH) ranging from 0-1% for moisture concentrations. All specimens were loaded up to buckling. The load, which is the initial part of the curve deviated linearity, is taken as the critical buckling load. The buckling results shows that there is a good agreement between experimental and numerical results within prescribed FEM formulation. It is observed that the increase in temperature and moisture concentration there is a decrease in critical buckling loads due to reduction of stiffness and strength.