Effect of Composite Fibers Orientations on Crack Behavior of a Thin Plate by Finite Element Method Simulation

The study is a preliminary effort which investigates the effect of different sequences of composite materials on the Von Mises stress and stress concentration factor on a simple thin cracked plate. Our approach is to reduce the design of cylinder under internal pure pressure to that of a cracked metal plate reinforced by different sequences layers of composite subjected to a tensile loading. Four reports of the length of the crack front (a) with respect to the thickness (t) of the structure were analyzed. The increased ratio (a/t) from 10% to 40% positively influences the values of stress intensity factors and the Von Mises stress. Finally, the numerical results show that the reinforced the cracked structure with composite layers has greatly reduced the stress intensity factor at the crack tip based on fiber orientations.