Reliability predictions of laminated composite plates with random system parameters

Reliability predictions of laminated composite plates with random system parameters subjected to transverse loads are performed using different methods. System parameters such as material properties, layer thicknesses, and lamina strengths of a laminated composite plate are treated as base-line random variables and an appropriate failure criterion is used to construct the limit state equation of the plate in the reliability analysis. Based on the statistics of the base-line random variables obtained from experiments, different methods, namely, Monte Carlo method, β method, and first-order second moment method, are used to calculate the reliability of the laminated composite plates. In the first-order second moment method, the stochastic finite element method is used to derive for the statistics of the first-ply failure load of the laminated composite plates from those of the base-line random variables. The reliability of the laminated plate is then computed using the theoretically determined statistics together with an assumed probability distribution function of the first-ply failure load. The feasibility and accuracy of the different methods are studied by means of the experimental data of centrally loaded laminated composite plates with different lay-ups. The suitability of several commonly used failure criteria for reliability analysis of laminated composite plates is also investigated by means of several examples.