STRUCTURAL SIMILITUDE FOR LAMINATED STRUCTURES

Due to special characteristics of advanced reinforced composite materi als, they require extensive experimental evaluation. Thus, it is extre mely useful to use available experimental data of specific structural systems to predict the behavior of all similar systems. This study des cribes the establishment of similarity conditions between two structur al systems. Similarity conditions provide the relationship between a s cale model and its prototype, and can be used to predict the behavior of the prototype by extrapolating the experimental data of the corresp onding small scale model. Since satisfying all the similarity conditio ns simultaneously is in most cases impractical, distorted models with partial similarity (with at least one similarity condition relaxed) ar e employed. Establishing similarity conditions, based on direct use of governing equations, is discussed and the possibility of designing di storted models is investigated. The method is demonstrated through ana lysis of the cylindrical bending of othotropic laminated beamplates su bjected to transverse loads and buckling of symmetric laminated cross- ply rectangular plates subjected to uniaxial compression.