Bending Analysis of Laminated Composite Box Beams

Box beams are widely used in weight reduction structures such as aircraft wings. The use of composite box beams further reduces the weight factor for such structures with the same deflection and stress as that of isotropic box beams. The difference in the behavior of composite box beams with different fiber orientation, number of plies, and number of stringers also provides a wide range of designing parameters to achieve the required performance for a given problem. A bending analysis has been carried out for the study of deflections and stresses for box beams of different material (isotropic and laminated composites), size, and number of stringers subjected to different kinds of loading conditions. A finite element model has been developed based on the strain energy principle, and the results are compared with an available commercial code “COSMOS/M.” Experiments using aluminum and scotchply composite laminates were conducted to verify the results. An optimal design for size and number of stiffeners for a given loading condition has been achieved. Investigations have also been carried out to find the effect of transverse shear on the span-wise normal stress.