Composite Structures 77 (2007) 7991

www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Probabilistic failure of laminated composite plates using

the stochastic nite element method
A.K. Onkar, C.S. Upadhyay, D. Yadav

Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur 208016, India

Available online 19 July 2005

Abstract
Due to their high strength to weight ratios, laminated composite materials have found extensive applications in the construction of
mechanical, aerospace, marine and automotive structures. Predictions of the failure of composite structures and the maximum loads
that the structures can withstand have become an important topic of research for reliability assurance. In particular, the rst-ply failure analysis of laminated composite plates subjected to transverse loads has drawn close attention in recent years. Accurate prediction
of failure of composite structures has become more challenging to designers in the presence of inherent scatter in the material properties. The objective of the present study is to improve the ecacy of composite material design by predicting the statistics of rst-ply
failure of orthotropic plates with random material properties under random loading. In the present study stochastic nite element
solutions of probabilistic failure load of composite laminated plates are obtained with layer-wise plate theory and analytical solutions
are found using KirchhoLove plate theory. Tsai-Wu and Homan criteria have been adopted to predict the rst-ply failure load
and rst-order perturbation technique has been used to evaluate the mean and variance of failure statistics. The capability of stochastic nite element in predicting the rst-ply failure load statistics has been studied by comparing the results with analytical solutions. It
has been found that the stochastic nite element has high accuracy for the cases considered. The present solutions are also compared
with results available in the literature. Numerical results have been presented to illustrate the application of the developed procedure.
 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Composite laminated plates; Random material properties; Random loads; Stochastic nite element method; Probabilistic failure

1. Introduction
A composite laminate is a stack of layers of ber-reinforced laminae. The laminae are made of bers and matrix which are of two dierent materials. The way in
which the bers and matrix materials are combined to
make a lamina as well as the lay-up and curing of lamina
are complicated processes and may involve a lot of
uncertainty. These uncertainties result in dispersion in
the material properties of the composite laminates.
For reliability assessment and failure analysis it is
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 512 259 7951; fax: +91 512 259
7561.
E-mail addresses: shekhar@iitk.ac.in (C.S. Upadhyay), dy@iitk.
ac.in (D. Yadav).

0263-8223/$ - see front matter  2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compstruct.2005.06.006

important for the designers to model the problem with

random material properties and loading for accurate
prediction of life and the failure load of the structure.
Recently, a number of researchers have studied the
failure probability of composite laminates subjected to
both transverse and in-plane loads. Cassenti [1] investigated the failure probability and probabilistic location
of failure in composite beams based on weakest-link
hypothesis. Cederbaum et al. [2] studied the reliability
of laminated plates subjected to in-plane random static
loads based on Hashin failure criterion for unidirectional ber composites. Engelstad et al. [3] and Kam
et al. [4] studied the reliability of linear and non-linear
laminated composite plates subjected to transverse loading. Reddy and Reddy [5] used dierent failure criteria
to investigate linear and non-linear rst-ply failure load

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A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 7991

based on rst-order shear deformation plate theory.

Kam and Jan [6] used layer-wise linear displacement
plate model to obtain a more accurate rst-ply failure
load on the basis of several failure criteria. Both investigations were basically done in deterministic environment only. Nakayasu and Maekawa [7] proposed
stochastic failure envelope diagrams to evaluate the stochastic behavior of a composite laminate with any lamination angle under in-plane multi axial load. Lin [8]
used the stochastic nite element method (SFEM) to
predict the reliability of angle-ply laminates with dierent types of buckling failure modes subject to in-plane
edge random load which were not applied simultaneously. It has been observed that the variations of the
ply thickness have the greatest eects on the variations
of laminate strengths as well as laminate reliability.
Wu et al. [9] used the Monte Carlo approach to generate
dierent strengths of composite lamina. The generated
strengths were then used to compute the rst-ply failure
of composite laminate based on Tsai-Hill or Tsai-Wu
criterion. Frangopol and Recek [10] studied the reliability of ber reinforced composite laminated plates
under transverse random loads. Tsai-Wu failure
criterion was used to predict the failure load and the
probability of failure was computed by Monte Carlo
simulation.
In the present work, both analytical and stochastic nite element approaches have been used to study the
rst-ply failure load statistics of composite laminates under transverse loading. The elastic moduli of the materials are assumed as random variables and their statistics
are used to predict the mechanical behaviour of composite laminates. This investigation aims at improving the
prediction of failure load by employing accurate models
for the material properties and external loading. The
stochastic nite element formulation is developed using
layer-wise plate model based on mean-centered rst-order perturbation technique. The analytical formulation
uses RayleighRitz principle with KirchhoLove plate
theory. Tsai-Wu and Homan criteria are used to predict the rst-ply failure load and a rst-order perturbation technique is adopted to predict the second-order
failure statistics. The mean failure load and its statistics
obtained from the SFEM are compared with the analytical solutions for symmetric cross-ply plate with all
edges simply supported. The plate is subjected to a distributed random transverse loading. A good agreement
between the closed form and SFEM solution has been
observed for the sample problems for which closed form
solutions can be obtained. A comparative study of failure statistics is also performed, on the basis of both the
failure criteria, for unidirectional composite laminate.
Results are presented to bring out the characteristics
of the failure load and its sensitivity to the lamina thickness, plate aspect ratio and lay-up sequence under various boundary conditions.

2. Analytical approach
Consider a rectangular symmetric cross-ply composite plate of in-plane dimensions a and b and constant
total thickness h, composed of thin orthotropic layers
bonded together. The origin of a Cartesian coordinate
system, as shown in Fig. 1, is located in the central plane
at the left corner with x and y axes along the middle
plane and the z axis normal to this plane. Using KirchoLove plate theory the displacement components
u, v and w can be expressed in terms of the mid-plane
displacements u0, v0, w0 and curvatures of the plate as:
ow0
;
ox
ow0
;
vx; y; z v0 x; y  z
oy

ux; y; z u0 x; y  z

wx; y; z w0 x; y.

The strain components are computed using the above

displacement eld and thin plate assumptions are made
in order to comply with the classical laminated plate theory which insures that transverse shear strains (cyz, cxz)
and transverse normal strain (ez) are negligible throughout the plate.
RayleighRitz principle has been employed to develop the system equations for the static response of the
composite laminated plate under transverse uniformly
distributed loading with simply supported edges. In case
of symmetric cross-ply all the coupling elements of
extensional stiness [A], bending stiness [D] and all elements of coupling stiness [B] matrices identically go to
zero. By neglecting the eect of transverse shear and
normal strains, the strain energy of the plate can be expressed as follows [14]:
Z Z
1 a b
2
2
2
2
U
fA11 e0x 2A12 e0x e0y A22 e0y A66 c0xy D11 e0x
2 0 0
2

2D12 jx jy D22 e0y D66 j2xy g dx dy;

0

where {e } and {j} are the membrane and curvature

strains of the plate middle surface respectively.

Fig. 1. Geometry of a laminated composite plate.

A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 7991

Let the plate be subjected to a uniformly distributed

transverse loading Q(x, y). The work done by the external forces is:
WD

Qx; ywx; y dx dy.

0

The boundary conditions for a cross-ply plate having

all sides simply supported with edges free to move in
their respective in-plane normal directions are:
Along x 0 and x a for all y;
v 0; w 0 : N x 0; M x 0

Along y 0 and y b for all x;

u 0; w 0 : N y 0; M y 0.

The following sets of admissible functions are assumed that satisfy the above boundary conditions:
mpx
npy
sin
;
a
b
mpx
npy
v0 V mn sin
cos
;
a
b
mpx
npy
w0 W mn sin
sin
a
b
u0 U mn cos

m; n 1; 2; . . . ; 1

T 1 U mn T 2 V mn 0;
T 2 U mn T 3 V mn 0;

3. Mean and variance of response: a perturbation

based approach
Mean centered rst-order perturbation approach has
been adopted for obtaining the rst-ply failure statistics
of at laminated composite plate with randomness in
material properties and loading. It is assumed that all
the material properties and loading components are
uncorrelated to each other. It can be shown that in case
of correlated random variables, it is possible to express
them in terms of an uncorrelated set by a transformation
using eigen vectors of the covariance matrix [12]. It is
also assumed that the dispersion of each random quantity about its mean value is small, which is true in most
sensitive engineering application.
Using a Taylor series expansion any system parameter, which represents structural uncertainty in the
plate, can be expanded in terms of the basic random
variables. The primary variables bl are assumed to be
the basic material properties and the elements of the
applied load. As assumed, the random part in the primary variables is small in magnitude compared to their
mean values, the second and higher order terms are neglected and the expression for the system operator may
be put as:
T i T 0i T ;ri br  b0r

where Umn, Vmn and Wmn are the maximum displacements in x and y directions for a particular value of
(m, n).
The strain energy and work done by external forces
can be obtained by substituting Eq. (5) into Eqs. (2)
and (3) and performing the required integrations. Based
on RayleighRitz principle, the governing modal equations of motion for uniformly distributed transverse
loading q0 are:

m; n 1; 2; . . . ; 1

81

r 1; 2; . . . ; R;

where br, r = 1, 2, . . . , s are the material variables and br,

r = s + 1, s + 2, . . . , s + s1 are the external loading variables. Thus the total number of the independent basic
random variables is s + s1 = R (say). Here the symbol
()0 represents the value of function taken at the mean
value of the input random variables while ()r stands
for the rst partial derivative with respect to the random
variables br evaluated at the mean of the input random
variables.
The displacements are also inuenced by the structural uncertainty and thus similar expression for displacements can be written as:

and T 4 W mn S mn q0 ;

U mn U 0mn U ;rmn br  b0r ;

where T1, T2, T3, T4 and Smn are expressed as:

mp2
np2
T 1 A11
A66
;
a
b
mpnp
;
T 2 A12 A66
a
b
np2
mp2
A66
;
T 3 A22
b
a
mp4
mp2 np2
np4
T 4 D11
2D12 D66
D22
;
a
a
b
b

V mn V 0mn V ;rmn br  b0r ;

S mn

ab1  11  1

mnp2

m; n 1; 2; . . . ; 1.
7

and

W mn W 0mn W ;rmn br  b0r

m; n 1; 2; . . . ; 1; r 1; 2; . . . ; R.
Substituting Eqs. (8) and (9) into Eq. (6), we arrive at
the following two equations by equating the zeroth and
rst powers of small order terms:
Zeroth-order:
T 01 U 0mn T 02 V 0mn 0;
T 02 U 0mn T 03 V 0mn 0;
and

T 04 W 0mn

S mn Q00 .

m; n 1; 2; . . . ; 1

10

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A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 7991

First-order:
T ;r1 U 0mn T 01 U ;rmn T ;r2 V 0mn T 02 V ;rmn
T ;r2 U 0mn T 02 U ;rmn T ;r3 V 0mn T 03 V ;rmn
T ;r4 W 0mn T 04 W ;rmn S mn Q0  Q00

Zeroth-order:
Z
Z
C 0ijkl e0ij de0kl dX
t0i du0i dC1

0;
0;

11

m; n 1; 2; . . . ; 1; r 1; 2; . . . ; R.
Having solved Eqs. (10) and (11) for the mean value of
displacement amplitudes and their rst-order derivatives, one can also obtain the mean values of stresses
and their derivatives with respect to the input random
variables by using the linear stressstrain relationship.
Subsequently the expression for the variance of the
response can be expressed as follows:
2
VarU mn EfU ;rmn br  b0r g ;
VarV mn EfV ;rmn br  b0r g2 ;
and

VarW mn EfW

;r
mn br

i; j; k; l 1; . . . ; 3.

C1

r 1; 2; . . . ; R
b0r g2 .
12

14
First-order:
Z
Z
Z
C 0ijkl e;rij de0kl dX C ;rijkl e0ij de0kl dX
t;ri du0i dC1
X
X
C1
Z
Z
Z
or
C 0ijkl e;rij de0kl dX
t;ri du0i dC1  C ;rijkl e0ij de0kl dX
X

C1

i; j; k; l 1; . . . ; 3; r 1; 2; . . . ; R.
15
where R is the number of basic random variables chosen
for the analysis. The zeroth-order equations are used to
obtain the mean response and the rst-order equations
give the rst-order response derivative with respect to
the basic random variables.

4. Stochastic nite element approach

5. Discretization

The present stochastic nite element analysis of laminated composite plates consisting of random parameters is based on the layer-wise plate model [11] and the
mean-centered rst-order perturbation technique. The
present model can be applied to the analysis of both thin
and thick plates.
Consider a plate with stochastically varying material
properties, subjected to random transverse loading. The
plate is assumed to be linearly elastic with a stochastic
elasticity tensor eld Cijkl. The goal is to nd the expectation of the eld variables, such as displacement and
stress. Based on the principle of minimum potential energy, the variational statement for uncertain stiness
and load can be written as [15]:
Z
Z
C ijkl eij dekl dX
ti dui dC1 i; j; k; l 1; . . . ; 3;

In the present layer-wise plate model the displacement eld at any point in the laminate may be approximated as [11]:

C1

13
where C C0 [ C1 represents the surface of the body
X. C0 denotes the Dirichlet part and C1 denotes the
Neumann part of the boundary of the body. eij denotes the strain tensor, which is a function of displacement eld ui, and ti is the surface tractions.
Body forces are assumed to be absent. Here suxes
1, 2 and 3 denote components along x, y and z directions respectively.
According to the standard stochastic variational
formulation of the displacement based nite element
method in conjunction with Taylor series expansion,
the zeroth- and rst-order variational statements can
be written as follows:

u1 x; y; z U ij N i x; yuj z;
u2 x; y; z V ij N i x; yuj z;
u3 x; y; z W ij N i x; yuj z

16

i 1; . . . ; nxy ; j 1; 2; . . . ; nz
where Ni(x, y) and uj(z) are the 2-D and 1-D Legendre
shape functions and Uij, Vij and Wij are the displacements of the ith node corresponding to the jth lamina
in the x, y and z direction respectively. nxy is the total
number of degrees of freedoms in the xy plane, and
nz is the degrees of freedom in the direction transverse
to the xy plane. The total number of degrees of freedom of the system becomes n = 3(nxy nz). It may be
noted that the assumption given by Eq. (16) admits
any order of transverse approximation (pz) because no
restriction is placed on the order of the transverse function uj(z). Here, nxy depends on the order of the in-plane
approximation, pxy.
The laminated plate is rst discretized into several
two-dimensional elements in the xy plane. Depending
on the accuracy required the laminated plate is also discretized into one or several layers which may or may not
be equal to number of material layers. In the present
analysis, the discretization in the z-direction is assumed
to be equal to the number of laminae or material layers.
The corresponding strain eld within the laminate
due to above approximation is given by:

A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 7991

1
eij ui;j uj;i i; j 1; 2; . . . ; 3
2

17

Employing the displacement eld (16) and after evaluation of strain eld (17), the discretized form of the variational statements of Eqs. (14) and (15) can be
represented as:
Zeroth-order:
K 0ij D0j F 0i

i; j 1; 2; . . . ; n.

18

First-order:
K 0ij D;rj F ;ri  K ;rij D0j

i; j 1; 2; . . . ; n; r 1; 2; . . . ; R.
19

The zeroth-order equations consist of one set of n equations whereas the rst-order equations consist of R sets
of n equations. K 0ij and K ;rij are the mean linear elastic
stiness matrix and the rst-order partial derivative of
elastic stiness matrix of the plate respectively. F 0i and
F ;ri represent the mean external out-of-plane load vector
and the rst-order partial derivative of the external load
vector respectively. D0j represents the mean displacement
vector comprised of fU 0ij ; V 0ij ; W 0ij g components. Similarly D;rj denotes the rst-order partial derivative displacement vector with components fU ;rij ; V ;rij ; W ;rij g.
Having solved equations (18) and (19) for the mean
values of the nodal displacement vectors and their
rst-order derivatives, one can also obtain the mean values of stresses and their derivatives with respect to the
basic random variables by using the linear stressstrain
relationship.

6. Statistics of rst-ply failure load

Here we assume that the individual lamina comprise
of homogeneous, orthotropic material with known
strength for a one-dimensional state of stress in the principal material direction. Application of the macroscopic
failure theory to an individual layer of a laminate corresponds to a rst-ply failure theory. That is, it is assumed
that the laminate fails when any ply in the laminate fails.
Tsai-Wu and Homan failure criteria are adopted for
the present analysis to predict the failure of a laminate
based on rst-ply failure analysis. The quadratic polynomial failure criterion in tensor form can be expressed as
[13]:
f r F i ri F ij ri rj

i; j 1; 2; . . . ; 6;

83

the laminate occurs when the failure index f(r) of any

ply is greater than or equal to one. The expressions for
strength parameters in terms of ultimate strengths for
Tsai-Wu and Homan criteria are as follows [13]:
Tsai-Wu strength parameters:
1
1
1
1
1
1

; F2  ; F3  ;
XT XC
YT YC
ZT ZC
1
1
1
; F 22
; F 33
;
F 11
X TX C
Y TY C
ZTZC
1
1
1
1
F 44 2 ; F 55 2 ; F 66 2 ; F 12  p ;
2 X TX CY TY C
R
T
S
1
1
F 13  p ; F 23  p .
2 X TX CZTZC
2 Y TY CZTZC
21

F1

Homan strength parameters:

All strengths parameters for Homan criterion are
similar to Tsai-Wu criterion except the interaction terms
Fij(i 5 j) in the above Eq. (21). The expressions for
interaction terms are as follows:


1
1
1
1
F 12 


;
2 X TX C Y TY C ZTZC


1
1
1
1


22
;
F 13 
2 X TX C Y TY C ZTZC


1
1
1
1

.
F 23  
2
X TX C Y TY C ZTZC
Here XT, YT and ZT indicate the ultimate tensile
strengths in the ber direction and two transverse directions, XC, YC and ZC the ultimate strengths in compression; and R, S and T the ultimate shear strengths.
Again the mean-centered rst-order perturbation
technique and the stochastic nite element method can
be used to nd the statistics of failure index from Eq.
(8). The uncertainty in the strength parameters is not included in the present analysis assuming these are deterministic. The mean and variance of the failure index are
expressed as:
Ef r F i r0i F ij r0i r0j

23

Varf r F i F l r;ri r;sl F i F lm r;ri r0l r;sm

F i F lm r;ri r;sl r0m F l F ij r;sl r0i r;rj
F ij F lm r0i r;rj r0l r;sm F ij F lm r0i r;rj r;sl r0m
F ij F l r;ri r0j r;sl F ij F lm r;ri r0j r0l r;sm
F ij F lm r;ri r0j r0m r;sl Ebr  b0r bs  b0s 

20

24

where Fi and Fij are functions of material strengths and

ri are stresses in material directions. All shear and normal-shear coupling terms of Fi and Fij are neglected by
the fact that the shear strength is independent of sign
in the material coordinates. It is noted that failure of

It may be noted that once the mean value of stresses and

their derivative with respect to random variables have
been obtained from the previous sections, one has to
transform these stresses into material coordinate system
to get the statistics of the failure load.

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A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 7991

7. Results and discussions

In the present failure study of laminated composite
plates, it is assumed that the ply is composed of laminae
which possess the same material properties throughout
the thickness. The laminates considered for generating
the results are made of T300/5208 graphite/epoxy material with properties as listed below:
E11 132.5 GPa; E22 E33 10.8 GPa;
G23 3.4 GPa; G12 G13 5.7 GPa;
m12 m13 0.24;

m23 0.49.

The ultimate strengths for the above material which are

used to calculate the strength parameters are dened as
X T 1515 MPa; X C 1697 MPa;
Y T Z T 43.8 MPa; Y C Z C 43.8 MPa;
R 67.6 MPa;

S T 86.9 MPa.

In the present analysis the elastic moduli

(E11, E22, m12, m23, G12, G23) of the material are treated as
independent random variables. The laminated plate is
subjected to a uniform distributed random load. The
geometry and boundary conditions are shown in Figs.
1 and 2 respectively. The nite element analysis is performed using pxy = 3 and pz = 1. To verify the accuracy

of the SFEM, the present approach is rst validated

with closed form solutions as developed in the previous
section and also with results available in the literature.
The eects of material property and load dispersion
along with variations in thickness ratio, aspect ratio
and lay-up sequences on failure statistics are also
explored.
7.1. Validation
A thin square laminated plate of size 50 50 mm consisting of four layers [0/90/90/0] of equal thickness with
b/h = 100 having all edges simply supported is considered for the present validation. The plane prole of
the uniform mesh of 20 20 elements in each layer is
shown in Fig. 3. Each element is six-noded prismatic.
A uniformly distributed load is applied on the top surface. Both Tsai-Wu and Homan failure criteria are
used to compare the mean failure load and the statistics
of failure index.
In order to validate the layer-wise model implementation, the failure loads obtained using the layerwise model are compared with that obtained using a
closed form solution and KirchhoLove (KL) model.
From the results given in Table 1, it can be concluded
that

Fig. 2. Boundary conditions of a laminated composite plate. (a) SSSS, (b) SCSC and (c) SFSF.

A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 7991

85

Table 2
Comparison of COV of failure index for [0/90/90/0] square laminate
with b/h = 100 having SSSS boundary condition
COV of
all BRVs

COV of failure index f(r)

SFEM

Closed form

SFEM

Closed form

0.00
0.04
0.08
0.12
016
0.20

0.0000
0.1299
0.2599
0.3898
0.5197
0.6497

0.0000
0.1298
0.2597
0.3896
0.5195
0.6494

0.0000
0.1171
0.2343
0.3514
0.4685
0.5856

0.0000
0.1171
0.2343
0.3514
0.4685
0.5856

Tsai-Wu

Homan

(iii) The Tsai-Wu measure gives slightly higher values

of COV for the failure index compared to the Homan criterion.
Fig. 3. Finite element discretization in xy plane for full plate analysis.

Table 1
Comparison of the mean failure load for [0/90/90/0] square laminate
with b/h = 100 having SSSS boundary condition
Dierent failure criteria

Tsai-Wu
Homan

Mean failure load (MPa)

SFEM

Closed form

0.07292
0.06246

0.07306
0.06250

(i) The mean failure load obtained using the layerwise model is close to the closed form results.
(ii) The mean load obtained using layer-wise model is
lower than that for the closed form solution.
The layer-wise model gives lower failure loads because this model is less sti as compared to KL model.
Further, for thin plates the behaviour is accurately predicted by the KL model, i.e., shear eects are negligible.
This is the reason why the layer-wise model and KL
model give very close values of the failure load.
In order to validate the SFEM implementation the effect of randomness of the material data and loading, on
the calculated failure index, is calculated. In Table 2 the
coecient of variation (COV) of the failure load is reported, with respect to change in the random input variables, for the thin symmetric cross-ply laminate
considered above. From the results it can be noted that:

This example validates the SFEM implementation of

the present study. It should be noted that the two failure
models, i.e., Tsai-Wu and Homan, give dierent values
of the mean failure load (Table 1). It is also noteworthy
that eect of material defects on the failure index, is
signicant.
The comparison of the mean failure load (FL) obtained using the present formulation is also made with
results reported in literature. A thin laminated plate of
size 229 127 mm and h = 0.508 mm with all edges
clamped is considered. The material properties used in
this analysis is same as dened above. Table 3 shows
the non-dimensionalised mean failure load, for four-layered laminates with dierent lay-ups, using Tsai-Wu failure criterion. The non-dimensionalised mean failure
load obtained using layer-wise plate model is compared
with those reported in [5], using a rst-order shear
deformable plate theory (FSDT). Further, the value of
the failure load obtained using an equivalent layer (by
assuming all four material layers as a single solution
layer) is also presented in Table 3. It is observed that:
(i) The conventional 2D plate models overpredict
mean failure loads as compared to those obtained
with the layer-wise plate model.

Table 3
Comparison of the mean non-dimensionalized failure load for dierent
laminates with CCCC boundary condition
Lay-ups

(i) The COV of failure index obtained using SFEM is

close to that obtained using the closed form
solution.
(ii) The failure index is very sensitive to change in the
input data. For example, for a COV of 4% in input
material data, the COV of failure index is 13%.

[45/45/45/45]
[0/90/90/0]
[90/0/90/0]

Non-dimensionalised mean failure load

(FLa4/E22h4)
Layer-wise
(present)

Equivalent
(present)

Reddy
[5] result

31,901.47
15,440.58
24,521.95

34,083.44
16,568.27
25,601.95

39,354.8
19,050.9
30,412.3

86

A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 7991

(ii) The mean failure load obtained using equivalent

single layer lies between the values obtained using
layer-wise and Reddys 2D plate model.
The failure loads, obtained using the layer-wise model,
are approximately 20% less than those reported in [5].
The failure load, obtained using the equivalent layer
model, is closer to those reported in [5]. This is because
the FSDT and equivalent models are stier as compared
to the layer-wise model.
7.2. Second-order failure statistics of anti-symmetric
laminated plates
Two dierent laminated plates of size 50 50 mm
with the following lay-ups schemes are used to illustrate
the present method. These are
Ply scheme 1: [0/90]
Ply scheme 2: [45/45]
Three dierent types of boundary conditions SSSS,
SCSC and SFSF (illustrated in Fig. 2) are used to study
the probabilistic failure of the laminates. Plate thickness
ratio b/h = 100 has been used in this study. The nite
element mesh shown in Fig. 3 is used to generate all
the results.
The mean failure load predicted by Tsai-Wu and
Homan criteria by keeping failure index equal to 0.8
are listed in Table 4 for square plate with dierent layups and boundary conditions. These failure loads ensure
that if a factor of safety of 1.2 were chosen for the design, the plates would still be assumed to be safe in the
deterministic environment. It can also be observed that
Homan criterion predicts higher mean failure load
compared to Tsai-Wu criterion for this set of loading,
material and boundary condition.

dimensionalised failure index (FI) with dispersion in

all the basic random variables (BRVs) changing simultaneously for ply schemes 1 and 2 having SSSS, SCSC and
SFSF boundary conditions are presented in Figs. 46
respectively. It is found that
(i) Angle ply is more aected by dispersion in the
input variables compared to cross-ply laminate.
(ii) Boundary conditions also play an important role
in the stochastic analysis.
(iii) The variation in FI is most sensitive for SCSC
boundary condition. This can be observed from
Fig. 5(a) and (b) that the COV of failure index,
for a COV of 10% in all BRVs, is 25% for [0/
90] laminates whereas for [45/45] laminates it is
55%.
(iv) For a COV of 10% in all BRVs, the COV of failure
index for SFSF laminated plates with [0/90] layups is 10% whereas for [45/45] lay-ups it is
30%. As the constraint violation is less in the
case of SFSF boundary condition compared to
SSSS and SCSC, the eect of BRV on COV of
FI are found to be less compared to the other
two boundary conditions.

7.3. Simultaneous variation of all BRVs

The eects of material properties on failure index of
composite laminated plates under transverse random
loading are now presented. The variations of non-

Table 4
Mean failure load for square plate with dierent lay-ups and boundary
conditions with b/h = 100
Ply schemes

Failure
criteria

Mean failure load for boundary

conditions
SSSS

SCSC

SFSF

[0/90]

Tsai-Wu
Homan

0.02469
0.02827

0.01869
0.02397

0.01113
0.01274

[45/45]

Tsai-Wu
Homan

0.04323
0.05526

0.03059
0.04098

0.01412
0.01589

Fig. 4. Inuence of SD of all basic random inputs changing simultaneously on COV of failure index for dierent lay-ups with SSSS
boundary condition and b/h = 100. (a) [0/90] and (b) [45/45].

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87

Fig. 5. Inuence of SD of all basic random inputs changing simultaneously on COV of failure index for dierent lay-ups with SCSC
boundary condition and b/h = 100. (a) [0/90] and (b) [45/45].

Fig. 6. Inuence of SD of all basic random inputs changing simultaneously on COV of failure index for dierent lay-ups with SFSF
boundary condition and b/h = 100. (a) [0/90] and (b) [45/45].

Assuming a normal distribution for the FI, which

roughly implies that two-thirds (68.26%) of the occurrences fall within 1r limit on either side of the average
and practically all (99.73%) fall within 3r limits, it can
be observed that both antisymmetric cross-ply and angle-ply fail when the eect of dispersion in the basic input variables are incorporated using a probabilistic
model.

(iii) The dispersion depends strongly on the failure criterion used.

Fig. 8(a)(g) shows the eect of individual random
variable on failure index for the same laminate with
SCSC boundary condition. Trends similar to SSSS plate
have been observed with higher dispersion in failure
index.

7.4. Eect of variation of individual BRV

7.5. Eect of plate aspect ratio and thickness ratio
In the previous results, the eect of variation of all
BRVs simultaneously on the rst-ply failure index was
reported. It is desirable to obtain the sensitivity of the
failure index to variation of each of the BRV. The inuence of individual random variable on failure index dispersion has been depicted in Figs. 7(a)(g) using both
failure criteria for ply scheme 1. The boundary condition
is SSSS. From these gures we observe that:
(i) The failure index variations are most aected by
change in q0. It is also signicant for change in
E22 and E11.
(ii) The least aect is due to the dispersion in m23, G12,
m12 and G23 depending upon the failure criteria
chosen.

The eect of aspect ratio (ar) on COV of FI with all

BRVs changing simultaneously from 0% to 20% has
been presented in Fig. 9(a) and (b) for ply scheme 1
and 2 having SSSS boundary using Tsai-Wu failure criterion. It can be seen that dispersion in FI decreases with
increase in aspect ratio and the eect is more prominent
in the case of angle ply as compared to cross-ply
laminates.
Fig. 10(a) and (b) shows the eect of thickness ratio
on FI dispersion with all BRVs changing from 0% to
20% for ply scheme 1 and 2 with SSSS boundary condition using Tsai-Wu failure criterion. It can be observed
that for ply scheme 1 the eect of thickness ratio (tr) on
the variation in FI is not prominent, being about 25%

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A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 7991

Fig. 7. Inuence of SD of individual basic random input on COV of failure index of [0/90] square laminate with SSSS boundary condition and b/
h = 100. Variation in (a) E11, (b) E22, (c) m12, (d) m23, (e) G12, (f) G23 and (g) q0.

for a COV of 10% in the BRVs. The variation in FI for

ply scheme 2 is sensitive to change in thickness ratio. It
initially increases for thickness ratio changing from 100

to 50 and decreases with further decrease in thickness ratio. The dispersion in the FI is generally observed to be
more than that in the BRVs.

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89

Fig. 8. Inuence of SD of individual basic random input on COV of failure index of [0/90] square laminate with SCSC boundary condition and b/
h = 100. Variation in (a) E11, (b) E22, (c) m12, (d) m23, (e) G12, (f) G23 and (g) q0.

8. Conclusion
A probabilistic, static failure of composite laminates
has been investigated with the help of stochastic nite

element method. The approach has been validated by

comparison with analytical results. Applications of the
proposed procedure have been demonstrated for antisymmetric laminates with dierent boundary conditions

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A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 7991

Fig. 9. Inuence of SD of all basic random inputs changing simultaneously on COV of failure index of square laminates with SSSS
boundary condition for dierent aspect ratios. (a) [0/90] and (b) [45/
45].

Fig. 10. Inuence of SD of all basic random inputs changing

simultaneously on COV of failure index of square laminates with
SSSS boundary condition for dierent thickness ratios. (a) [0/90] and
(b) [45/45].

under transverse random loading. The approach can be

used to predict the failure index dispersion of composite
materials. A mean failure load has been studied and as a
result, the statistics of failure index has been included in
the probabilistic failure analysis. Based on 3r limit the
maximum failure index for all cases studied is much
higher than 0.8 which indicates that the materials which
may be considered to be safe by deterministic analysis
may fail when the eect of dispersion in the basic input
variables are incorporated using a probabilistic model.
It has been shown that among all random variables q0
has the greatest eect on the variation of failure index.
It has also been shown that the SCSC boundary condition has greater eect on the variation of failure index
compared to other boundary conditions. The eect of
thickness and aspect ratio has also been investigated
and it has been found that the dispersion in failure index
decreases with the increase in aspect ratio of the laminates. It is expected that the developed procedure would
lead to accurate evaluation of failure index and help in
more reliable design of composite laminates. It can also
be concluded that the statistics of the failure depends
strongly on the chosen rst-ply failure model.

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