Concentrated loading of a fibre-reinforced composite plate: Experimental and computational modeling of boundary fixity

This paper examines the flexural behavior of a locally loaded Carbon Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) composite rectangular plate with different edge support conditions. The transversely isotropic elasticity properties of the unidirectionally reinforced laminae were determined experimentally and verified through computational modeling. The assembly of the laminae is used to construct a model of the plate. The layered composite CFRP plate used in the experimental investigation consisted of 11 layers of a polyester matrix reinforced with carbon fibres. The bulk fibre volume fraction in the plate was approximately 61%. The experimental results for the deflected shape of the plate are compared with computational results that take into account large deflections of the plate within the small strain range. It was found that the Representative Area Element (RAE) method developed for estimating the elastic properties of uni-directional fibre reinforced plates provides reliable estimates for the finite element modeling of the composite plate at the macro-scale.