• Composites Research
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.9-18
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• 2005

With the wide applications of fiber-reinforced composite material in aero-structures and mechanical parts, the design of composite joints have become a very important research area because the joints are often the weakest areas in composite structures. This paper presents an analytical study of the stress distributions in mechanically single-fastened and multi-fastened composite laminates. The finite element models which treat the pin and hole contact problem using a contact stress analysis are described. A dimensionless stress concentration factor is used to compare the stress distributions in composite laminates quantitatively In the case of single-pin loaded composite laminate, the effects of stacking sequence, the ratio of a hole diameter and the width of a laminate (W/D ratio), the ratio of hole diameter and distance from edge to hole (E/D ratio), friction coefficient and clamping force are considered. In the case of multi-pin loaded composite laminate, the influence of the number of pins, pitch distance, number of rows, row spacing and hole pattern are considered. The results show that P/D ratio and E/D ratio affect more on stress distributions near the hole boundary than the other factors. In the case of multi-pin loaded composite laminate, the stress concentration in the double column case is better than the other cases of multi-pin loaded composite laminate.