Laminate Strength—A Direct Characterization Procedure

Laminate failure surface is represented by a third-order tensor polynominal. Experimental determination of the strength coefficients (the failure tensors) is aided by a hybrid approach which utilizes an estimate of failure surface determined from a lamina failure criterion and laminated plate theory. The estimated laminate failure surface in turn identifies the necessary critical experiments with the consequence of minimizing experimental permutation and maximizing the reliability of laminate failure thus determined.