GENERAL MULTILAYER GEOMETRICALLY-EXACT BEAMS AND 1-D PLATES WITH PIECEWISE-LINEAR SECTION DEFORMATION

A general theory of geometrically-exact multilayer beams and I-D plate s, which can be viewed as a special version of a Cosserat continuum, i s presented. The formulation allows for shear deformation in each laye r; the deformed cross section is piecewise linear. such that interlaye r continuity is exactly satisfied. Large deformation and large overall motion can be analyzed, as a salient feature of the geometrically-exa ct formulation. The number of layers is unlimited, with the reference centroidal line arbitrarily chosen among the layers. The unique featur es of the present formulation provide a versatile model to investigate the behavior of an important class of composite/multilayer structure that have ply drop-off or that are connected together at any arbitrary layers. Also derived are two important particular cases of the genera l formulation: (i) The case in which only the reference layer undergoe s finite rotations, whereas rotations in the outer layers are small re lative to that of the reference layer, (ii) the fully linearized case.