Deformation of antisymmetric laminate under centrifugal force and/or thermal load

A smart blade conception has been proposed by the authors. With stretching¯twisting coupling effect, the blade is twisted by centrifugal load or ambient temperature change. In this paper, the blade, simplified as a cantilevered antisymmetric laminate, is investigated by classic plate theory. An analytical scheme based on Rayleigh¯Ritz (RR) method is proposed to calculate plateʹs deformation behavior. RRʹs analytical results are compared with FEMʹs to check the present schemeʹs numerical accuracy. Influence of the fiber orientation angle is discussed and the angle at which the blade twists most is found. Further analysis focusing on plateʹs nonlinear behavior is performed. The nonlinearity, originated with large out-plane deflection, influences the plate in two aspects: large-strain and follower force. These aspects are discussed separately in the analysis, by introducing quadric terms into strain and virtual work expressions. It is shown that for the present model, nonlinear influence must be considered at 10,000 rpm rotation speed loading, but is negligible at temperature-load below 120 K.