A Simplified Approach for Interlaminar Stresses in Orthotropic Laminated Strips

Interlaminar stresses play an important role for strength estimation of anisotropic laminates. In this paper the authors extend the results of anisotropic, generalized plane stress theory and assume certain power functions for the interlaminar stresses which must satisfy the equilibrium equation in the free edge area and the corresponding boundary conditions. The two parameters n and k are set equal to 4 and 0.5 respec tively. The calculated results are in good agreement with other analytical and numerical results. Using the formulas given here, the computing procedure will be greatly simplified and the effect of certain important parameters, such as the orientation angle, the ratio of thickness of different ply groups, and the stacking sequence, can be investigated systematically.