RELIABILITY FORMULATION FOR COMPOSITE LAMINATES SUBJECTED TO FIRST-PLY FAILURE

Methods formulated on the basis of the concept of first-ply failure an d the structural reliability theory are presented for the reliability analysis of laminated composite plates. In the reliability formulation , an appropriate phenomenological failure criterion is used to establi sh the limit state equation of the laminated composite plates, and dif ferent numerical techniques are employed to evaluate the reliability o f the plates. Experimental investigations of lamina strengths and firs t-ply failure loads of laminated composite plates were performed. Base line probability distributions of lamina strength parameters construct ed from the test data are used to study the reliability of the laminat ed plates. The accuracy of the proposed models in reliability assessme nt of the laminated plates are verified by the experimental results on first-ply failure load distributions. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.