Elastic-plastic stress analysis and expansion of plastic zone in clamped and simply supported aluminum metal-matrix laminated plates

An elastic-plastic stress analysis and the expansion of plastic zone in lay ers of stainless steel fiber-reinforced aluminum metal-matrix laminated pla tes are studied by using Finite Element Method and First-order shear deform ation theory for small deformations. The plate is meshed into 64 elements a nd 289 nodes with simply supported or clamped boundary conditions. Laminate d plates of constant thickness are formed by stacking four layers bonded sy mmetrically or antisymmetrically. It is assumed that the laminated plates a re subjected to transverse uniform loads. Loading is gradually increased fr om yield point of the plate as 0.0001 MPa at each load step. Load steps are chosen as 100, 150 and 200. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights rese rved.