Structure mechanical modeling of thin-walled closed-section composite beams, part 2: Multi-cell cross section

The methodology used in part 1 (Zhang and Wang, submitted for publication) of the work for single-cell thin-walled closed-section composite beams is extended to multi-cell thin-walled closed-section composite beams. The effect of material anisotropies is fully considered on the mid-surface shear strain of all the cross sectional members including skin walls and internal members. Numerical comparisons with ABAQUS finite element simulations are performed for three-cell box and elliptical beams with a variety of laminate layups under various loading conditions and excellent agreements are observed. Significant deficiency of some existing models are shown.