EVALUATION OF THE EFFECT OF THERMAL RESIDUAL STRESS ON BUCKLING AND POST-BUCKLING OF COMPOSITE PLATES WITH LATERAL REINFORCEMENT

Abstract

The objective of this work is to evaluate experimentally the effects of the thermal residual stresses on the buckling and post-buckling behavior of plates manufactured with reinforced symmetrical laminates. This study presents the analysis of square carbon/epoxy plates reinforced using lateral reinforcements. The reinforcements were bonded using two different procedures. In the first procedure, the reinforcements were bonded at room temperature, whereas in the second procedure they were co-cured with the plate at 177ºC. The buckling and post-buckling tests were performed applying a compression and the transverse displacements caused by the load were also measured using the topogrametry technique. All the experimental results were compared with numerical results using commercial software ABAQUS®. The obtained values demonstrated the influence of the thermal residual stresses on the mechanical behavior of the plate, especially in the buckling and post-buckling behavior, which is evidenced by an increase on stiffness of the composite plates, to be cured at a temperature of 177ºC.