High-resolution elastic analysis of thin-ply composite laminates

Several studies showed that thin-plies composite laminates apparently exhibit higher strength than its counterpart using thicker plies. In this work, a high-resolution numerical discretization based on the use of in-plane-out-of-plane separated representations within the Proper Generalized Decomposition - PGD - framework is performed in different composites laminates for determining the effect of ply-thickness on the laminate stiffness. The results reveal that the global stiffness increases with the ply-thickness reduction. The analysis also reveals that this mechanical enhancement is due to structural effects and not to the mechanical confinement initially advanced.