Stress Analysis of Fiber-Reinforced Composite Materials

Updated and improved, Stress Analysis of Fiber-Reinforced Composite Materials, Hyer's work remains the definitive introduction to the use of mechanics to understand stresses in composites caused by deformations, loading, and temperature changes. In contrast to a materials science approach, Hyer emphasizes the micromechanics of stress and deformation for composite material analysis. The book provides invaluable analytic tools for students and engineers seeking to understand composite properties and failure limits. A key feature is a series of analytic problems continuing throughout the text, starting from relatively simple problems, which are built up step-by-step with accompanying calculations. The problem series uses the same material properties, so the impact of the elastic and thermal expansion properties for a single-layer of FR material on the stress, strains, elastic properties, thermal expansion and failure stress of cross-ply and angle-ply symmetric and unsymmetric laminates can be evaluated. The book shows how thermally induced stresses and strains due to curing, add to or subtract from those due to applied loads. Another important element, and one unique to this book, is an emphasis on the difference between specifying the applied loads, i.e., force and moment results, often the case in practice, versus specifying strains and curvatures and determining the subsequent stresses and force and moment results. This represents a fundamental distinction in solid mechanics.

Table of Contents follows: 1. Fiber-Reinforced Composite Materials 2. Linear Elastic Stress-Strain Characteristics of Fiber-Reinforced Material 3. Prediction of Engineering Properties Using Micromechanics 4. The Plane-Stress Assumption 5. Plane-Stress Stress-Strain Relations in a Global Coordinate System 6. Classical Lamination Theory: The Kirchhoff Hypothesis and Its Implications 7. Classical Lamination Theory: Laminate Stiffness Matrix 8. Classical Lamination Theory: Additional Examples 9. Failure Theories for Fiber-Reinforced Materials: Maximum Stress Criterion 10. Failure Theories for Fiber-Reinforced Materials: The Tsai-Wu Criterion 11. Environmentally Induced Stresses in Laminates 12. Through-Thickness Laminate Strains 13. Introduction to Fiber-Reinforced Laminated Plates 14. Appendix: Manufacturing Composite Laminates