Composite Structures 77 (2007) 79–91

www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Probabilistic failure of laminated composite plates using

the stochastic finite element method
A.K. Onkar, C.S. Upadhyay, D. Yadav *

Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur 208016, India

Available online 19 July 2005

Abstract

Due to their high strength to weight ratios, laminated composite materials have found extensive applications in the construction of
mechanical, aerospace, marine and automotive structures. Predictions of the failure of composite structures and the maximum loads
that the structures can withstand have become an important topic of research for reliability assurance. In particular, the first-ply fail-
ure analysis of laminated composite plates subjected to transverse loads has drawn close attention in recent years. Accurate prediction
of failure of composite structures has become more challenging to designers in the presence of inherent scatter in the material prop-
erties. The objective of the present study is to improve the efficacy of composite material design by predicting the statistics of first-ply
failure of orthotropic plates with random material properties under random loading. In the present study stochastic finite element
solutions of probabilistic failure load of composite laminated plates are obtained with layer-wise plate theory and analytical solutions
are found using Kirchhoff–Love plate theory. Tsai-Wu and Hoffman criteria have been adopted to predict the first-ply failure load
and first-order perturbation technique has been used to evaluate the mean and variance of failure statistics. The capability of stochas-
tic finite element in predicting the first-ply failure load statistics has been studied by comparing the results with analytical solutions. It
has been found that the stochastic finite element has high accuracy for the cases considered. The present solutions are also compared
with results available in the literature. Numerical results have been presented to illustrate the application of the developed procedure.
 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Composite laminated plates; Random material properties; Random loads; Stochastic finite element method; Probabilistic failure

1. Introduction important for the designers to model the problem with

A composite laminate is a stack of layers of fiber-rein-
forced laminae. The laminae are made of fibers and ma-
trix which are of two different materials. The way in
which the fibers and matrix materials are combined to
make a lamina as well as the lay-up and curing of lamina
are complicated processes and may involve a lot of
uncertainty. These uncertainties result in dispersion in
the material properties of the composite laminates.
For reliability assessment and failure analysis it is
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 512 259 7951; fax: +91 512 259
7561.
E-mail addresses: shekhar@iitk.ac.in (C.S. Upadhyay), dy@iitk.
ac.in (D. Yadav).
random material properties and loading for accurate
prediction of life and the failure load of the structure.
Recently, a number of researchers have studied the
failure probability of composite laminates subjected to
both transverse and in-plane loads. Cassenti [1] investi-
gated the failure probability and probabilistic location
of failure in composite beams based on weakest-link
hypothesis. Cederbaum et al. [2] studied the reliability
of laminated plates subjected to in-plane random static
loads based on Hashin failure criterion for unidirec-
tional fiber composites. Engelstad et al. [3] and Kam
et al. [4] studied the reliability of linear and non-linear
laminated composite plates subjected to transverse load-
ing. Reddy and Reddy [5] used different failure criteria
to investigate linear and non-linear first-ply failure load

0263-8223/$ - see front matter  2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compstruct.2005.06.006
80 A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 79–91
based on first-order shear deformation plate theory.
Kam and Jan [6] used layer-wise linear displacement
plate model to obtain a more accurate first-ply failure
load on the basis of several failure criteria. Both investi-
gations were basically done in deterministic environ-
ment only. Nakayasu and Maekawa [7] proposed
stochastic failure envelope diagrams to evaluate the sto-
chastic behavior of a composite laminate with any lam-
ination angle under in-plane multi axial load. Lin [8]
used the stochastic finite element method (SFEM) to
predict the reliability of angle-ply laminates with differ-
ent types of buckling failure modes subject to in-plane
edge random load which were not applied simulta-
neously. It has been observed that the variations of the
ply thickness have the greatest effects on the variations
of laminate strengths as well as laminate reliability.
Wu et al. [9] used the Monte Carlo approach to generate
different strengths of composite lamina. The generated
strengths were then used to compute the first-ply failure
of composite laminate based on Tsai-Hill or Tsai-Wu
criterion. Frangopol and Recek [10] studied the reliabil-
ity of fiber reinforced composite laminated plates
under transverse random loads. Tsai-Wu failure
criterion was used to predict the failure load and the
probability of failure was computed by Monte Carlo
simulation.
In the present work, both analytical and stochastic fi-
nite element approaches have been used to study the
first-ply failure load statistics of composite laminates un-
der transverse loading. The elastic moduli of the materi-
als are assumed as random variables and their statistics
are used to predict the mechanical behaviour of compos-
ite laminates. This investigation aims at improving the
prediction of failure load by employing accurate models
for the material properties and external loading. The
stochastic finite element formulation is developed using
layer-wise plate model based on mean-centered first-or-
der perturbation technique. The analytical formulation
uses Rayleigh–Ritz principle with Kirchhoff–Love plate
theory. Tsai-Wu and Hoffman criteria are used to pre-
dict the first-ply failure load and a first-order perturba-
tion technique is adopted to predict the second-order
failure statistics. The mean failure load and its statistics
obtained from the SFEM are compared with the analyt-
ical solutions for symmetric cross-ply plate with all
edges simply supported. The plate is subjected to a dis-
tributed random transverse loading. A good agreement
between the closed form and SFEM solution has been
observed for the sample problems for which closed form
solutions can be obtained. A comparative study of fail-
ure statistics is also performed, on the basis of both the
failure criteria, for unidirectional composite laminate.
Results are presented to bring out the characteristics
of the failure load and its sensitivity to the lamina thick-
ness, plate aspect ratio and lay-up sequence under vari-
ous boundary conditions.
2. Analytical approach
Consider a rectangular symmetric cross-ply compos-
ite plate of in-plane dimensions a and b and constant
total thickness h, composed of thin orthotropic layers
bonded together. The origin of a Cartesian coordinate
system, as shown in Fig. 1, is located in the central plane
at the left corner with x and y axes along the middle
plane and the z axis normal to this plane. Using Kirc-
hoff–Love plate theory the displacement components
u, v and w can be expressed in terms of the mid-plane
displacements u0, v0, w0 and curvatures of the plate as:
ow0
uðx; y; zÞ ¼ u0 ðx; yÞ  z ;
ox
ow0
vðx; y; zÞ ¼ v0 ðx; yÞ  z ;
oy
wðx; y; zÞ ¼ w0 ðx; yÞ. ð1Þ
The strain components are computed using the above
displacement field and thin plate assumptions are made
in order to comply with the classical laminated plate the-
ory which insures that transverse shear strains (cyz, cxz)
and transverse normal strain (ez) are negligible through-
out the plate.
Rayleigh–Ritz principle has been employed to devel-
op the system equations for the static response of the
composite laminated plate under transverse uniformly
distributed loading with simply supported edges. In case
of symmetric cross-ply all the coupling elements of
extensional stiffness [A], bending stiffness [D] and all ele-
ments of coupling stiffness [B] matrices identically go to
zero. By neglecting the effect of transverse shear and
normal strains, the strain energy of the plate can be ex-
pressed as follows [14]:
Z Z
1 a b 2 2 2 2
U¼ fA11 e0x þ 2A12 e0x e0y þ A22 e0y þ A66 c0xy þ D11 e0x
2 0 0
2
þ 2D12 jx jy þ D22 e0y þ D66 j2xy g dx dy; ð2Þ
0
where {e } and {j} are the membrane and curvature
strains of the plate middle surface respectively.
Fig. 1. Geometry of a laminated composite plate.
 A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 79–91 81

Let the plate be subjected to a uniformly distributed 3. Mean and variance of response: a perturbation
transverse loading Q(x, y). The work done by the exter- based approach
nal forces is:
Z Z Mean centered first-order perturbation approach has
a b
been adopted for obtaining the first-ply failure statistics
WD ¼ Qðx; yÞwðx; yÞ dx dy. ð3Þ
0 0 of flat laminated composite plate with randomness in
material properties and loading. It is assumed that all
The boundary conditions for a cross-ply plate having the material properties and loading components are
all sides simply supported with edges free to move in uncorrelated to each other. It can be shown that in case
their respective in-plane normal directions are: of correlated random variables, it is possible to express
them in terms of an uncorrelated set by a transformation
Along x ¼ 0 and x ¼ a for all y; using eigen vectors of the covariance matrix [12]. It is
also assumed that the dispersion of each random quan-
v ¼ 0; w ¼ 0 : N x ¼ 0; M x ¼ 0
ð4Þ tity about its mean value is small, which is true in most
Along y ¼ 0 and y ¼ b for all x; sensitive engineering application.
Using a Taylor series expansion any system param-
u ¼ 0; w ¼ 0 : N y ¼ 0; M y ¼ 0.
eter, which represents structural uncertainty in the
plate, can be expanded in terms of the basic random
The following sets of admissible functions are as-
variables. The primary variables bl are assumed to be
sumed that satisfy the above boundary conditions:
the basic material properties and the elements of the
mpx npy applied load. As assumed, the random part in the pri-
u0 ¼ U mn cos sin ; mary variables is small in magnitude compared to their
a b
mpx npy mean values, the second and higher order terms are ne-
v0 ¼ V mn sin cos ; ðm; n ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 1Þ ð5Þ glected and the expression for the system operator may
a b
mpx npy be put as:
w0 ¼ W mn sin sin
a b T i ¼ T 0i þ T ;ri ðbr  b0r Þ ðr ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; RÞ; ð8Þ
where Umn, Vmn and Wmn are the maximum displace- where br, r = 1, 2, . . . , s are the material variables and br,
ments in x and y directions for a particular value of r = s + 1, s + 2, . . . , s + s1 are the external loading vari-
(m, n). ables. Thus the total number of the independent basic
The strain energy and work done by external forces random variables is s + s1 = R (say). Here the symbol
can be obtained by substituting Eq. (5) into Eqs. (2) (Æ)0 represents the value of function taken at the mean
and (3) and performing the required integrations. Based value of the input random variables while (Æ)r stands
on Rayleigh–Ritz principle, the governing modal equa- for the first partial derivative with respect to the random
tions of motion for uniformly distributed transverse variables br evaluated at the mean of the input random
loading q0 are: variables.
The displacements are also influenced by the struc-
T 1 U mn þ T 2 V mn ¼ 0; tural uncertainty and thus similar expression for dis-
T 2 U mn þ T 3 V mn ¼ 0; ðm; n ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 1Þ ð6Þ placements can be written as:
and T 4 W mn ¼ S mn q0 ; U mn ¼ U 0mn þ U ;rmn ðbr  b0r Þ;
where T1, T2, T3, T4 and Smn are expressed as: V mn ¼ V 0mn þ V ;rmn ðbr  b0r Þ;
ð9Þ
mp2 np2 and W mn ¼ W 0mn þ W ;rmn ðbr  b0r Þ
T 1 ¼ A11 þ A66 ;
a b ðm; n ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 1; r ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; RÞ.
mpnp
T 2 ¼ ðA12 þ A66 Þ ; Substituting Eqs. (8) and (9) into Eq. (6), we arrive at
a b
np2 mp2 the following two equations by equating the zeroth and
T 3 ¼ A22 þ A66 ; first powers of small order terms:
b a
mp4 mp2 np2 np4
T 4 ¼ D11 þ 2ðD12 þ D66 Þ þ D22 ; • Zeroth-order:
a a b b
m n T 01 U 0mn þ T 02 V 0mn ¼ 0;
ab½ð1Þ  1½ð1Þ  1
S mn ¼ ðm; n ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 1Þ.
mnp2 T 02 U 0mn þ T 03 V 0mn ¼ 0; ðm; n ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 1Þ ð10Þ
ð7Þ and T 04 W 0mn ¼ S mn Q00 .
82 A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 79–91

• First-order: • Zeroth-order:
Z Z
T ;r1 U 0mn þ T 01 U ;rmn þ T ;r2 V 0mn þ T 02 V ;rmn ¼ 0; C 0ijkl e0ij de0kl dX ¼ t0i du0i dC1 ði; j; k; l ¼ 1; . . . ; 3Þ.
T ;r2 U 0mn þ T 02 U ;rmn þ T ;r3 V 0mn þ T 03 V ;rmn ¼ 0; X C1
ð11Þ ð14Þ
T ;r4 W 0mn þ T 04 W ;rmn ¼ S mn ðQ0  Q00 Þ
ðm; n ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 1; r ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; RÞ. • First-order:
Z Z Z
Having solved Eqs. (10) and (11) for the mean value of C 0ijkl e;rij de0kl dX þ C ;rijkl e0ij de0kl dX ¼ t;ri du0i dC1
displacement amplitudes and their first-order deriva- X X C1
Z Z Z
tives, one can also obtain the mean values of stresses or C 0ijkl e;rij de0kl dX ¼ t;ri du0i dC1  C ;rijkl e0ij de0kl dX
and their derivatives with respect to the input random X C1 X
variables by using the linear stress–strain relationship. ði; j; k; l ¼ 1; . . . ; 3; r ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; RÞ.
Subsequently the expression for the variance of the
ð15Þ
response can be expressed as follows:
2
VarðU mn Þ ¼ E½fU ;rmn ðbr  b0r Þg ; where R is the number of basic random variables chosen
for the analysis. The zeroth-order equations are used to
VarðV mn Þ ¼ E½fV ;rmn ðbr  b0r Þg2 ; ðr ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; RÞ obtain the mean response and the first-order equations
and VarðW mn Þ ¼ E½fW ;r
mn ðbr  b0r Þg2 . give the first-order response derivative with respect to
ð12Þ the basic random variables.

4. Stochastic finite element approach 5. Discretization

The present stochastic finite element analysis of lam-
inated composite plates consisting of random parame-
ters is based on the layer-wise plate model [11] and the
mean-centered first-order perturbation technique. The
present model can be applied to the analysis of both thin
and thick plates.
Consider a plate with stochastically varying material
properties, subjected to random transverse loading. The
plate is assumed to be linearly elastic with a stochastic
elasticity tensor field Cijkl. The goal is to find the expec-
tation of the field variables, such as displacement and
stress. Based on the principle of minimum potential en-
ergy, the variational statement for uncertain stiffness
and load can be written as [15]:
Z Z
C ijkl eij dekl dX ¼ ti dui dC1 ði; j; k; l ¼ 1; . . . ; 3Þ;
X C1
ð13Þ
where C ¼ C0 [ C1 represents the surface of the body
X. C0 denotes the Dirichlet part and C1 denotes the
Neumann part of the boundary of the body. eij de-
notes the strain tensor, which is a function of dis-
placement field ui, and ti is the surface tractions.
Body forces are assumed to be absent. Here suffixes
1, 2 and 3 denote components along x, y and z direc-
tions respectively.
According to the standard stochastic variational
formulation of the displacement based finite element
method in conjunction with Taylor series expansion,
the zeroth- and first-order variational statements can
be written as follows:
In the present layer-wise plate model the displace-
ment field at any point in the laminate may be approx-
imated as [11]:
u1 ðx; y; zÞ ¼ U ij N i ðx; yÞuj ðzÞ;
u2 ðx; y; zÞ ¼ V ij N i ðx; yÞuj ðzÞ;
ð16Þ
u3 ðx; y; zÞ ¼ W ij N i ðx; yÞuj ðzÞ
ði ¼ 1; . . . ; nxy ; j ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; nz Þ
where Ni(x, y) and uj(z) are the 2-D and 1-D Legendre
shape functions and Uij, Vij and Wij are the displace-
ments of the ith node corresponding to the jth lamina
in the x, y and z direction respectively. nxy is the total
number of degrees of freedoms in the x–y plane, and
nz is the degrees of freedom in the direction transverse
to the x–y plane. The total number of degrees of free-
dom of the system becomes n = 3(nxy · nz). It may be
noted that the assumption given by Eq. (16) admits
any order of transverse approximation (pz) because no
restriction is placed on the order of the transverse func-
tion uj(z). Here, nxy depends on the order of the in-plane
approximation, pxy.
The laminated plate is first discretized into several
two-dimensional elements in the x–y plane. Depending
on the accuracy required the laminated plate is also dis-
cretized into one or several layers which may or may not
be equal to number of material layers. In the present
analysis, the discretization in the z-direction is assumed
to be equal to the number of laminae or material layers.
The corresponding strain field within the laminate
due to above approximation is given by:
 A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 79–91 83

1 the laminate occurs when the failure index f(r) of any

eij ¼ ðui;j þ uj;i Þði; j ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 3Þ ð17Þ
2 ply is greater than or equal to one. The expressions for
Employing the displacement field (16) and after evalua- strength parameters in terms of ultimate strengths for
tion of strain field (17), the discretized form of the var- Tsai-Wu and Hoffman criteria are as follows [13]:
iational statements of Eqs. (14) and (15) can be Tsai-Wu strength parameters:
represented as: 1 1 1 1 1 1
F1¼  ; F2 ¼  ; F3 ¼  ;
XT XC YT YC ZT ZC
• Zeroth-order: 1 1 1
F 11 ¼ ; F 22 ¼ ; F 33 ¼ ;
K 0ij D0j ¼ F 0i ði; j ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; nÞ. ð18Þ X TX C Y TY C ZTZC
1 1 1 1
• First-order: F 44 ¼ 2 ; F 55 ¼ 2 ; F 66 ¼ 2 ; F 12 ¼  pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ;
R S T 2 X TX CY TY C
K 0ij D;rj ¼ F ;ri  K ;rij D0j ði; j ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; n; r ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; RÞ. 1 1
F 13 ¼  pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ; F 23 ¼  pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi .
ð19Þ 2 X TX CZTZC 2 Y TY CZTZC
The zeroth-order equations consist of one set of n equa- ð21Þ
tions whereas the first-order equations consist of R sets Hoffman strength parameters:
of n equations. K 0ij and K ;rij are the mean linear elastic All strengths parameters for Hoffman criterion are
stiffness matrix and the first-order partial derivative of similar to Tsai-Wu criterion except the interaction terms
elastic stiffness matrix of the plate respectively. F 0i and Fij(i 5 j) in the above Eq. (21). The expressions for
F ;ri represent the mean external out-of-plane load vector interaction terms are as follows:
and the first-order partial derivative of the external load  
1 1 1 1
vector respectively. D0j represents the mean displacement F 12 ¼  þ  ;
vector comprised of fU 0ij ; V 0ij ; W 0ij g components. Simi- 2 X TX C Y TY C ZTZC
 
larly D;rj denotes the first-order partial derivative dis- 1 1 1 1
F 13 ¼   þ ; ð22Þ
placement vector with components fU ;rij ; V ;rij ; W ;rij g. 2 X TX C Y TY C ZTZC
 
1 1 1 1
Having solved equations (18) and (19) for the mean F 23 ¼   þ þ .
2 X TX C Y TY C ZTZC
values of the nodal displacement vectors and their
first-order derivatives, one can also obtain the mean val- Here XT, YT and ZT indicate the ultimate tensile
ues of stresses and their derivatives with respect to the strengths in the fiber direction and two transverse direc-
basic random variables by using the linear stress–strain tions, XC, YC and ZC the ultimate strengths in compres-
relationship. sion; and R, S and T the ultimate shear strengths.
Again the mean-centered first-order perturbation
technique and the stochastic finite element method can
6. Statistics of first-ply failure load be used to find the statistics of failure index from Eq.
(8). The uncertainty in the strength parameters is not in-
Here we assume that the individual lamina comprise cluded in the present analysis assuming these are deter-
of homogeneous, orthotropic material with known ministic. The mean and variance of the failure index are
strength for a one-dimensional state of stress in the prin- expressed as:
cipal material direction. Application of the macroscopic E½f ðrÞ ¼ F i r0i þ F ij r0i r0j ð23Þ
failure theory to an individual layer of a laminate corre-
sponds to a first-ply failure theory. That is, it is assumed Var½f ðrÞ ¼ ½F i F l r;ri r;sl þ F i F lm r;ri r0l r;sm
that the laminate fails when any ply in the laminate fails.
Tsai-Wu and Hoffman failure criteria are adopted for þ F i F lm r;ri r;sl r0m þ F l F ij r;sl r0i r;rj
the present analysis to predict the failure of a laminate þ F ij F lm r0i r;rj r0l r;sm þ F ij F lm r0i r;rj r;sl r0m
based on first-ply failure analysis. The quadratic polyno-
mial failure criterion in tensor form can be expressed as þ F ij F l r;ri r0j r;sl þ F ij F lm r;ri r0j r0l r;sm
[13]: þ F ij F lm r;ri r0j r0m r;sl E½ðbr  b0r Þðbs  b0s Þ
f ðrÞ ¼ F i ri þ F ij ri rj ði; j ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 6Þ; ð20Þ ð24Þ
where Fi and Fij are functions of material strengths and It may be noted that once the mean value of stresses and
ri are stresses in material directions. All shear and nor- their derivative with respect to random variables have
mal-shear coupling terms of Fi and Fij are neglected by been obtained from the previous sections, one has to
the fact that the shear strength is independent of sign transform these stresses into material coordinate system
in the material coordinates. It is noted that failure of to get the statistics of the failure load.
84 A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 79–91
7. Results and discussions
In the present failure study of laminated composite
plates, it is assumed that the ply is composed of laminae
which possess the same material properties throughout
the thickness. The laminates considered for generating
the results are made of T300/5208 graphite/epoxy mate-
rial with properties as listed below:
E11 ¼ 132.5 GPa; E22 ¼ E33 ¼ 10.8 GPa;
G23 ¼ 3.4 GPa; G12 ¼ G13 ¼ 5.7 GPa;
m12 ¼ m13 ¼ 0.24; m23 ¼ 0.49.
The ultimate strengths for the above material which are
used to calculate the strength parameters are defined as
X T ¼ 1515 MPa; X C ¼ 1697 MPa;
Y T ¼ Z T ¼ 43.8 MPa; Y C ¼ Z C ¼ 43.8 MPa;
R ¼ 67.6 MPa; S ¼ T ¼ 86.9 MPa.
In the present analysis the elastic moduli
(E11, E22, m12, m23, G12, G23) of the material are treated as
independent random variables. The laminated plate is
subjected to a uniform distributed random load. The
geometry and boundary conditions are shown in Figs.
1 and 2 respectively. The finite element analysis is per-
formed using pxy = 3 and pz = 1. To verify the accuracy
Fig. 2. Boundary conditions of a laminated composite plate. (a) SSSS, (b) SCSC and (c) SFSF.
of the SFEM, the present approach is first validated
with closed form solutions as developed in the previous
section and also with results available in the literature.
The effects of material property and load dispersion
along with variations in thickness ratio, aspect ratio
and lay-up sequences on failure statistics are also
explored.
7.1. Validation
A thin square laminated plate of size 50 · 50 mm con-
sisting of four layers [0/90/90/0] of equal thickness with
b/h = 100 having all edges simply supported is consid-
ered for the present validation. The plane profile of
the uniform mesh of 20 · 20 elements in each layer is
shown in Fig. 3. Each element is six-noded prismatic.
A uniformly distributed load is applied on the top sur-
face. Both Tsai-Wu and Hoffman failure criteria are
used to compare the mean failure load and the statistics
of failure index.
In order to validate the layer-wise model implementa-
tion, the failure loads obtained using the layer-
wise model are compared with that obtained using a
closed form solution and Kirchhoff–Love (KL) model.
From the results given in Table 1, it can be concluded
that
 A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 79–91 85

Table 2
Comparison of COV of failure index for [0/90/90/0] square laminate
with b/h = 100 having SSSS boundary condition
COV of COV of failure index f(r)
all BRVs
Tsai-Wu Hoffman
SFEM Closed form SFEM Closed form
0.00 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
0.04 0.1299 0.1298 0.1171 0.1171
0.08 0.2599 0.2597 0.2343 0.2343
0.12 0.3898 0.3896 0.3514 0.3514
016 0.5197 0.5195 0.4685 0.4685
0.20 0.6497 0.6494 0.5856 0.5856

(iii) The Tsai-Wu measure gives slightly higher values

of COV for the failure index compared to the Hoff-
man criterion.

Fig. 3. Finite element discretization in x–y plane for full plate analysis. This example validates the SFEM implementation of
the present study. It should be noted that the two failure
models, i.e., Tsai-Wu and Hoffman, give different values
Table 1 of the mean failure load (Table 1). It is also noteworthy
Comparison of the mean failure load for [0/90/90/0] square laminate that effect of material defects on the failure index, is
with b/h = 100 having SSSS boundary condition significant.
Different failure criteria Mean failure load (MPa) The comparison of the mean failure load (FL) ob-
SFEM Closed form tained using the present formulation is also made with
Tsai-Wu 0.07292 0.07306 results reported in literature. A thin laminated plate of
Hoffman 0.06246 0.06250 size 229 · 127 mm and h = 0.508 mm with all edges
clamped is considered. The material properties used in
this analysis is same as defined above. Table 3 shows
the non-dimensionalised mean failure load, for four-lay-
(i) The mean failure load obtained using the layer- ered laminates with different lay-ups, using Tsai-Wu fail-
wise model is close to the closed form results. ure criterion. The non-dimensionalised mean failure
(ii) The mean load obtained using layer-wise model is load obtained using layer-wise plate model is compared
lower than that for the closed form solution. with those reported in [5], using a first-order shear
deformable plate theory (FSDT). Further, the value of
The layer-wise model gives lower failure loads be- the failure load obtained using an equivalent layer (by
cause this model is less stiff as compared to KL model. assuming all four material layers as a single solution
Further, for thin plates the behaviour is accurately pre- layer) is also presented in Table 3. It is observed that:
dicted by the KL model, i.e., shear effects are negligible.
This is the reason why the layer-wise model and KL (i) The conventional 2D plate models overpredict
model give very close values of the failure load. mean failure loads as compared to those obtained
In order to validate the SFEM implementation the ef- with the layer-wise plate model.
fect of randomness of the material data and loading, on
the calculated failure index, is calculated. In Table 2 the
coefficient of variation (COV) of the failure load is re-
ported, with respect to change in the random input vari- Table 3
ables, for the thin symmetric cross-ply laminate Comparison of the mean non-dimensionalized failure load for different
considered above. From the results it can be noted that: laminates with CCCC boundary condition
Lay-ups Non-dimensionalised mean failure load
(i) The COV of failure index obtained using SFEM is (FLa4/E22h4)
close to that obtained using the closed form Layer-wise Equivalent Reddy
solution. (present) (present) [5] result
(ii) The failure index is very sensitive to change in the [45/45/45/45] 31,901.47 34,083.44 39,354.8
input data. For example, for a COV of 4% in input [0/90/90/0] 15,440.58 16,568.27 19,050.9
[90/0/90/0] 24,521.95 25,601.95 30,412.3
material data, the COV of failure index is 13%.
86 A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 79–91

(ii) The mean failure load obtained using equivalent
single layer lies between the values obtained using
layer-wise and Reddys 2D plate model.
The failure loads, obtained using the layer-wise model,
are approximately 20% less than those reported in [5].
The failure load, obtained using the equivalent layer
model, is closer to those reported in [5]. This is because
the FSDT and equivalent models are stiffer as compared
to the layer-wise model.
7.2. Second-order failure statistics of anti-symmetric
laminated plates
Two different laminated plates of size 50 · 50 mm
with the following lay-ups schemes are used to illustrate
the present method. These are
Ply scheme 1: [0/90]
Ply scheme 2: [45/45]
Three different types of boundary conditions SSSS,
SCSC and SFSF (illustrated in Fig. 2) are used to study
the probabilistic failure of the laminates. Plate thickness
ratio b/h = 100 has been used in this study. The finite
element mesh shown in Fig. 3 is used to generate all
the results.
The mean failure load predicted by Tsai-Wu and
Hoffman criteria by keeping failure index equal to 0.8
are listed in Table 4 for square plate with different lay-
ups and boundary conditions. These failure loads ensure
that if a factor of safety of 1.2 were chosen for the de-
sign, the plates would still be assumed to be safe in the
deterministic environment. It can also be observed that
Hoffman criterion predicts higher mean failure load
compared to Tsai-Wu criterion for this set of loading,
material and boundary condition.
dimensionalised failure index (FI) with dispersion in
all the basic random variables (BRVs) changing simulta-
neously for ply schemes 1 and 2 having SSSS, SCSC and
SFSF boundary conditions are presented in Figs. 4–6
respectively. It is found that
(i) Angle ply is more affected by dispersion in the
input variables compared to cross-ply laminate.
(ii) Boundary conditions also play an important role
in the stochastic analysis.
(iii) The variation in FI is most sensitive for SCSC
boundary condition. This can be observed from
Fig. 5(a) and (b) that the COV of failure index,
for a COV of 10% in all BRVs, is 25% for [0/
90] laminates whereas for [45/45] laminates it is
55%.
(iv) For a COV of 10% in all BRVs, the COV of failure
index for SFSF laminated plates with [0/90] lay-
ups is 10% whereas for [45/45] lay-ups it is
30%. As the constraint violation is less in the
case of SFSF boundary condition compared to
SSSS and SCSC, the effect of BRV on COV of
FI are found to be less compared to the other
two boundary conditions.

7.3. Simultaneous variation of all BRVs

The effects of material properties on failure index of

composite laminated plates under transverse random
loading are now presented. The variations of non-

Table 4
Mean failure load for square plate with different lay-ups and boundary
conditions with b/h = 100
Ply schemes Failure Mean failure load for boundary
criteria conditions
SSSS SCSC SFSF
[0/90] Tsai-Wu 0.02469 0.01869 0.01113
Hoffman 0.02827 0.02397 0.01274
Fig. 4. Influence of SD of all basic random inputs changing simulta-
[45/45] Tsai-Wu 0.04323 0.03059 0.01412
neously on COV of failure index for different lay-ups with SSSS
Hoffman 0.05526 0.04098 0.01589
boundary condition and b/h = 100. (a) [0/90] and (b) [45/45].
 A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 79–91
Fig. 5. Influence of SD of all basic random inputs changing simulta-
neously on COV of failure index for different lay-ups with SCSC
boundary condition and b/h = 100. (a) [0/90] and (b) [45/45].
Assuming a normal distribution for the FI, which
roughly implies that two-thirds (68.26%) of the occur-
rences fall within 1r limit on either side of the average
and practically all (99.73%) fall within 3r limits, it can
be observed that both antisymmetric cross-ply and an-
gle-ply fail when the effect of dispersion in the basic in-
put variables are incorporated using a probabilistic
model.
7.4. Effect of variation of individual BRV
In the previous results, the effect of variation of all
BRVs simultaneously on the first-ply failure index was
reported. It is desirable to obtain the sensitivity of the
failure index to variation of each of the BRV. The influ-
ence of individual random variable on failure index dis-
persion has been depicted in Figs. 7(a)–(g) using both
failure criteria for ply scheme 1. The boundary condition
is SSSS. From these figures we observe that:
(i) The failure index variations are most affected by
change in q0. It is also significant for change in
E22 and E11.
(ii) The least affect is due to the dispersion in m23, G12,
m12 and G23 depending upon the failure criteria
chosen.
87
Fig. 6. Influence of SD of all basic random inputs changing simulta-
neously on COV of failure index for different lay-ups with SFSF
boundary condition and b/h = 100. (a) [0/90] and (b) [45/45].
(iii) The dispersion depends strongly on the failure cri-
terion used.
Fig. 8(a)–(g) shows the effect of individual random
variable on failure index for the same laminate with
SCSC boundary condition. Trends similar to SSSS plate
have been observed with higher dispersion in failure
index.
7.5. Effect of plate aspect ratio and thickness ratio
The effect of aspect ratio (ar) on COV of FI with all
BRVs changing simultaneously from 0% to 20% has
been presented in Fig. 9(a) and (b) for ply scheme 1
and 2 having SSSS boundary using Tsai-Wu failure cri-
terion. It can be seen that dispersion in FI decreases with
increase in aspect ratio and the effect is more prominent
in the case of angle ply as compared to cross-ply
laminates.
Fig. 10(a) and (b) shows the effect of thickness ratio
on FI dispersion with all BRVs changing from 0% to
20% for ply scheme 1 and 2 with SSSS boundary condi-
tion using Tsai-Wu failure criterion. It can be observed
that for ply scheme 1 the effect of thickness ratio (tr) on
the variation in FI is not prominent, being about 25%
88 A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 79–91

Fig. 7. Influence of SD of individual basic random input on COV of failure index of [0/90] square laminate with SSSS boundary condition and b/
h = 100. Variation in (a) E11, (b) E22, (c) m12, (d) m23, (e) G12, (f) G23 and (g) q0.

for a COV of 10% in the BRVs. The variation in FI for to 50 and decreases with further decrease in thickness ra-
ply scheme 2 is sensitive to change in thickness ratio. It tio. The dispersion in the FI is generally observed to be
initially increases for thickness ratio changing from 100 more than that in the BRVs.
 A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 79–91 89

Fig. 8. Influence of SD of individual basic random input on COV of failure index of [0/90] square laminate with SCSC boundary condition and b/
h = 100. Variation in (a) E11, (b) E22, (c) m12, (d) m23, (e) G12, (f) G23 and (g) q0.

8. Conclusion element method. The approach has been validated by

comparison with analytical results. Applications of the
A probabilistic, static failure of composite laminates proposed procedure have been demonstrated for anti-
has been investigated with the help of stochastic finite symmetric laminates with different boundary conditions
90 A.K. Onkar et al. / Composite Structures 77 (2007) 79–91
Fig. 9. Influence of SD of all basic random inputs changing simulta-
neously on COV of failure index of square laminates with SSSS
boundary condition for different aspect ratios. (a) [0/90] and (b) [45/
45].
under transverse random loading. The approach can be
used to predict the failure index dispersion of composite
materials. A mean failure load has been studied and as a
result, the statistics of failure index has been included in
the probabilistic failure analysis. Based on 3r limit the
maximum failure index for all cases studied is much
higher than 0.8 which indicates that the materials which
may be considered to be safe by deterministic analysis
may fail when the effect of dispersion in the basic input
variables are incorporated using a probabilistic model.
It has been shown that among all random variables q0
has the greatest effect on the variation of failure index.
It has also been shown that the SCSC boundary condi-
tion has greater effect on the variation of failure index
compared to other boundary conditions. The effect of
thickness and aspect ratio has also been investigated
and it has been found that the dispersion in failure index
decreases with the increase in aspect ratio of the lami-
nates. It is expected that the developed procedure would
lead to accurate evaluation of failure index and help in
more reliable design of composite laminates. It can also
be concluded that the statistics of the failure depends
strongly on the chosen first-ply failure model.
Fig. 10. Influence of SD of all basic random inputs changing
simultaneously on COV of failure index of square laminates with
SSSS boundary condition for different thickness ratios. (a) [0/90] and
(b) [45/45].
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