Buckling of Composite Plate Made of Curvilinear Fibers by Considering Gaps and Overlaps Effects

In this research, buckling of composite plates made of curvilinear fiber with considering gap and overlap effects was studied. Two paths for curvilinear fiber were considered, namely, the linear variation of fiber angle and constant curvature path. An in-house computer program in Python language was written for locating the gaps and overlaps and modeling stages. Then the analysis was performed by ABAQUS finite element software. Two aspect ratios of length to width of the composite plate were considered. Results show that for plate with the length greater than the width, more improvement in buckling load was obtained by using curvilinear fibers. Also the results show that, without considering gap and overlap effects, the linear variation of fiber orientation and the constant curvature path caused more than sixty and fifty percent increase in the buckling load in comparison with maximum buckling load of the composites made of the straight fibers, respectively. For both paths, by considering gap and overlap effects, buckling load can increase more than thirty and ninety percent, respectively.