Progressive failure and post-buckling response of tapered composite plates under uni-axial compression

The objective of the present work is to predict the first-ply failure load, the ultimate failure load, the buckling load, the associated maximum transverse displacements, and locations and modes of failure of tapered laminated plates under the action of uni-axial compression. A non-linear finite element formulation is developed based on the first-order shear deformation theory and the geometric non-linearity in the von Karman sense. The tensor polynomial form of the maximum stress criterion is used in conjunction with a progressive failure simulation methodology. A parametric study on tapered composite plates is conducted, considering the influences of different laminate configurations, taper configurations and fiber orientation angles.