Analysis of Tapered Laminated Composites with Non-Symmetric Lay-Up

A global-local approach for the analysis of tapered laminated composites is presented. The method is considerably more economical than existing techniques. A new drop-off element that is degenerated from a 2-D drop-off element is introduced to carry out the global analysis. The drop-off element accommodates the termination of plies within the element and therefore, the size of the stiffness matrix reduces. At the vicinity of the drop-off, where the stress concentration is high, a local analysis with a refined mesh is performed with the results of the global analysis. Since a fine mesh is to be adopted only near the drop-off, there is substantial economy in the computational effort and time as compared to the conventional analysis models. The present method has been validated extensively against published results. The discussions on the stress/strain distributions at different locations have been presented.