Accurate Stress Analysis of Variable Angle Tow Shells by High-Order Equivalent-Single-Layer and Layer-Wise Finite Element Models.

New concepts of lightweight components are conceived nowadays thanks to the advances in the manufacture of composite structures. For instance, mature technologies such as Automatic Fibre Placement (AFP) are employed in the fabrication of structural parts where fibres are steered along curvilinear paths, namely variable angle tow (VAT), which can enhance the mechanical performance and alleviate the structural weight. This is of utmost importance in the aerospace field, where weight savings are one of the main goals.

Buckling Sensitivity of Tow-Steered Plates Subjected to Multiscale Defects by High-Order Finite Elements and Polynomial Chaos Expansion.

It is well known that fabrication processes inevitably lead to defects in the manufactured components. However, thanks to the new capabilities of the manufacturing procedures that have emerged during the last decades, the number of imperfections has diminished while numerical models can describe the ground truth designs. Even so, a variety of defects has not been studied yet, let alone the coupling among them.