Theoretical approach for the mechanical behaviors of conical composite tubes considering fiber orientation errors under static loads

This study analyzes the mechanical behaviors of conical composite tubes, considering fiber orientation errors, under static loads. Fiber orientation errors are defined as fiber orientation changes that occur due to the taper angle of conical composite tubes during the wrapping process. Such fiber orientation errors are one of many important parameters in predicting mechanical properties, and must be taken into account for the design of conical composite tubes. Thus, this study derived the theoretical equations to analyze the mechanical behaviors of conical composite tubes under static loads considering fiber orientation errors according to the laminate plate theory. For verification of the derived equations, the calculation results were compared with the results of other research that did not take fiber orientation errors into account as well as experimental results that did include fiber orientation errors. As a result, the derived equations could predict the static behaviors of conical composite tubes 5.5% errors. Also, we performed parametric studies such as taper angles, sizes, and stacking sequences. The effect of taper angles on the static behaviors was the most important and the static deformations with and without the consideration of fiber orientation errors had a 500% difference over 10O of the taper angle.