Evaluation of buckling and first-ply failure probabilities of composite laminates

procedure for failure probability evaluation of composite laminates subjected to inplane loads is proposed. The material properties, fiber angles and layer thicknesses of the laminates are treated as random variables in the reliability analysis. The statistics of first-ply failure loads and buckling strengths of the laminates are determined via the stochastic finite element method. The failure probabilities of the laminates which are susceptible to buckling and first-ply failure are computed using the statistics obtained in the stochastic finite element analysis. The feasibility and accuracy of the present approach are validated using the results obtained via the Monte-Carlo method. A number of examples of reliability analysis of composite laminates subject to in-plane loads are given to illustrate the applications of the procedure. 0 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd