Stress analysis of laminates of carbon fiber reinforced plastics, containing transverse cracks, considering free-edge effect and residual thermal stress

A variational approach is presented to evaluate the 3-dimensional stress state in cross-ply laminates of the form [(S)/90n]s that contain transverse cracks in the 90° plies, where (S) is any orthotropic sublaminate. Admissible stress states that satisfy equilibrium and all boundary and interface conditions are constructed, and the principle of minimum complementary energy is employed to find an optimal approximation of the composite strain energy. Using this method of analysis, we can express the stress state by considering the free-edge effect, which causes edge delamination in cracked laminates. The calculated results using the proposed model showed good agreement with the results calculated by the finite element method.