Effect of volume fraction on stability analysis of glass fibre reinforced composite plate

This paper deals with an experimental investigation to study the effect of fibre content on the stability of composite plates with various aspect ratios. Epoxy based glass fibre reinforced composite plates with aspect ratio varying from 0.4 to 1 and with volume fractions of 0.36, 0.4, 0.46, 0.49 and 0.55 are used for the investigation. From the study it is observed that for plate with aspect ratio of 0.5 and 0.4 there is no buckling and the plate got crushed at the middle. As the volume fraction increases the buckling load also increases to a limit and then began to reduce with further increase in fibre content. The optimum range of fibre content for maximum stability is found between 0.49 and 0.55. Polynomial expressions are developed for the study of buckling behaviour of composite plates with different volume fractions in terms of load and aspect ratio.