• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.47-52
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• 2011

It is well known that stiffness of composites depends on layup sequence of CFRP(carbon fiber reinforced plastics) laminates because the layup of composite laminates influences their properties. Ultrasonic NDE of composite laminates is often based on the backwall echoes of the sample. A pair of such transducers was mounted in a holder in a nose-to-nose fashion to be used as a scanning probe on composites. Miniature potted angle beam transducers were used (Rayleigh waves in steel) on solid laminates of composites. Experiments were performed to understand the behavior of the transducers and the nature of the waves generated in the composite (mode, wave speed, angle of refraction). C-scan images of flaws and impact damage were then produced by combining the pitch-catch probe with a portable manual scanner known as the Generic Scanner ("GenScan"). The pitch-catch signal was found to be more sensitive than normal incidence backwall echo of longitudinal wave to fiber orientation of the CFRP composites, including low level porosity, ply waviness, and cracks. Therefore, it is found that the experimentally Rayleigh wave variation of pitch-catch ultrasonic signal was consistent with numerical results and one-side ultrasonic measurement might be very useful to detect the defects.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.12
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• pp.1345-1350
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• 2014

This paper presented analysis methods for adapting E-glass fiber/epoxy composite (GFRP) materials to an automotive leaf spring. It focused on the static behaviors of the leaf spring due to the material composition and its fiber orientation. The material properties of the GFRP composite were directly measured based on the ASTM standard test. A reverse implementation was performed to obtain the complete set of in-situ fiber and matrix properties from the ply test results. Next, the spring rates of the composite leaf spring were examined according to the variation of material parameters such as the fiber angles and resin contents of the composite material. Finally, progressive failure analysis was conducted to identify the initial failure load by means of an elastic stress analysis and specific damage criteria. As a result, it was found that damage first occurred along the edge of the leaf spring owing to the shear stresses.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.19-31
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• 2002

Crush energy characteristics of graphite/epoxy square tubes are experimentally studied. Effect of the ply orientation on the peak load and the average load is investigated by applying compressive load on the top of the composite square tubes under the stroke control with crosshead speed of 0.003mm/sec and 0.3mm/sec. in addition to the experimental survey, the finite element analysis is used to estimate the peak load of the composite square tubes with [0/90]₄ and [0/±45/90]₂. The first buckling mode of the tube is superimposed to the perfect geometry and the distributed compressive load is applied on the top of the tubes. The applied compressive load that make Tsai-Wu criteria equal to one is regarded as the peak load of the tubes. The experimental data shows that the square tube with [45/-45]₄ has the highest peak load and the square tube with [60/-60]₄ has the average sustained load. The measure peak load of the composite tubes with [0/90]₄ and [0/±45/90]₂agree well with the estimated peak load using the finite element analysis.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.31-46
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• 2019

In the present study, the various dynamic properties of MWCNT embedded fiber reinforced polymer uniform and tapered composite (MWCNT-FRP) plates are investigated. Various configurations of a tapered composite plate with ply-drop off and uniform composite plate have been considered for the development of the finite element formulation and experimental investigations. First order shear deformation theory (FSDT) has been used to derive the kinetic and potential energy equations of the hybrid composite plates by including the effect of rotary inertia, shear deformation and non-uniformity in thickness of the plate. The governing equations of motion of FRP composite plates without and with MWCNT reinforcement are derived by considering a nine- node rectangular element with five degrees of freedom (DOF) at each node. The effectiveness of the developed finite element formulation has been demonstrated by comparing the natural frequencies and damping ratio of FRP composite plates without and with MWCNT reinforcement obtained experimentally. Various parametric studies are also performed to study the effect of CNT volume fraction and CNT aspect ratio of the composite plate on the natural frequencies of different configurations of CNT reinforced hybrid composite plates. Further the forced vibration analysis is performed to compare the dynamic response of the various configurations of MWCNT-GFRP composite plate with GFRP composite plate under harmonic excitations. It was observed that the fundamental natural frequency and damping ratio of the GFRP composite plate increase approximately 8% and 37% respectively with 0.5wt% reinforcement of MWCNT under CFCF boundary condition. The natural frequencies of MWCNT-GFRP hybrid composite plates tend to decrease with the increase of MWCNT volume fraction beyond 2% due to agglomeration of CNT's. It is also observed that the aspect ratio of the CNT has negligible effect on the improvement of dynamics properties due to randomly orientation of CNT's.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.427-446
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• 2022

Cutouts in the beams or plates are often unavoidable due to inspection, maintenance, ventilation, structural aesthetics purpose, and sometimes to lighten the structures. Therefore, there will be a substantial reduction in the strength of the structure due to the introduction of the cutouts. However, these cutouts can be reinforced with the different patterns of ribs (stiffener) to enhance the strength of the structure. The present study highlights the influence of the elliptical cutout reinforced with a different pattern of ribs on the stability performance of such stiffened composite panels subjected to non-uniform edge loads by employing the Finite element (FE) technique. In the present formulation, a 9-noded heterosis element is used to model the skin, and a 3-noded isoparametric beam element is used to simulate the rib that is attached around a cutout in different patterns. The displacement compatibility condition is employed between the plate and stiffener, and arbitrary orientations are taken care by introducing respective transformation matrices. The effect of shear deformation and rotary inertia are incorporated in the formulation. A new mesh configuration is developed to house the attached ribs around an elliptical cutout with different patterns. Initially, a study is performed on the panels with different stiffener schemes for various ply orientations and for different stiffener depth to width ratios (d_s/b_s) to determine an optimal stiffener configuration. Further, various parametric studies are conducted on an obtained optimal stiffened panel to understand the effect of cutout size, cutout orientation, panel aspect ratio, and boundary conditions. Finally, from the analysis, it can be observed that the arrangement of the stiffener attached to a panel has a major impact on the buckling capacity of the stiffened panel. The stiffener's depth to width ratio also significantly influences the buckling characteristic.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.10
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• pp.959-965
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• 2017

In recent years, major airplane manufacturers have been using the laminate failure theory to estimate the strain of composite structures for airplanes. The laminate failure theory uses the failure strain of the laminate to analyze composite structures. This paper describes a procedure for the experimental assessment of laminate tensile failure characteristics. Regression analysis was used as the experimental assessment method. The regression analysis was performed with the response variable being the laminate failure strain and with the regressor variables being two-ply orientation ($0^{\circ}$ and ${\pm}45^{\circ}$) variables. The composite material in this study is a carbon/epoxy unidirectional (UD) tape that was cured as a pre-preg at $177^{\circ}C(350^{\circ}F)$. A total of 149 tension tests were conducted on specimens from 14 distinct laminates that were laid up at standard angle layers ($0^{\circ}$, $45^{\circ}$, $-45^{\circ}$, and $90^{\circ}$). The ASTM-D-3039 standard was used as the test method.