Experimental-numerical studies on the first-ply failure analysis of real, thin walled laminated angle columns subjected to uniform shortening

Abstract This study investigates the behaviour of real short thin-walled laminated angle columns subjected to uniform shortening. Numerical analyses and experiments were conducted over the full range of loading until the initiation of structural damage. The experiments were performed on a universal testing machine with the use of the Aramis digital image correlation system for displacement/strain measurement. The first signs of structural damage were detected by acoustic emission method . The numerical analysis was performed by the finite element method using Abaqus software. Different failure criteria were considered in the numerical analysis, including the Tsai-Wu criterion, Tsai-Hill criterion, Azzi-Tsai-Hill criterion, maximum stress criterion and Hashin criterion. The numerical analysis also investigated the effect of elastic pads that were used in the experiments to reduce the impact of local effects and geometric imperfection of column ends. Obtained numerical and experimental results show very good agreement.