Computational Materials Science 49 (2010) S383S389

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Computational Materials Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/commatsci

Finite element modeling and experimental study on bending and vibration

of laminated stiffened glass ber/polyester composite plates
Tran Ich Thinh *, Tran Huu Quoc
School of Mechanical Engineering, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Viet Nam

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 25 November 2009
Received in revised form 26 April 2010
Accepted 6 May 2010
Available online 6 July 2010
Keywords:
Finite element method
Free vibration
Progressive failure
Stiffened glass ber/polyester composite plates

a b s t r a c t
In this paper, free vibration and bending failure of laminated stiffened glass ber/polyester composite
plates with laminated open section (rectangular or T-shaped) and closed section (hat shaped) of stiffeners
have been studied by nite element method and experiment. A 9-noded isoparametric element with 9
degrees of freedom per node is developed for the plates. The stiffener element is a 3-noded isoparametric
beam element with 5 degrees of freedom per node and the stiffeners can be positioned anywhere within
the plate element. The natural frequencies of the laminated stiffened plates are determined experimentally by Dewebook device and DasyLab 7.0 software. The results calculated by computational model for
above plates under different boundary conditions are in good agreement with experiments. The failure
problems of these stiffened glass ber/polyester composite plates are also investigated.
2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Laminated stiffened composite plates are extensively used in
aircraft structures, ship and boat hulls, bridge decks and other
industrial applications due to their high stiffnessweight ratio
and high strength weight ratio. Stiffeners can achieve greater
strength with relatively less material, which improves the
strength/weight ratio and makes the structure cost efcient.
Consequently, many sophisticated models and methods (grillage model, orthotropic model, RayleighRitz method, nite difference method, semi-analytic nite different method and nite
element method) have been developed over the years for an appropriate structural analysis for these plates. Among them, nite element method has widely used because it has been found to be
reasonably accurate with less complexity to model stiffened plates.
Chattopadhyay et al. [1] have developed a nite element method based on rst-order shear deformation theory to analyze free
vibration behaviour of composite stiffened plates. An 8-noded isoparametric quadratic stiffened plate bending element has been
used in their formulation. The same shape function is used for
the shell and stiffener element. The formulation restricts itself to
model stiffeners which are required to pass through two adjacent
edges of the plate element.
The FE model of Kolli and Chandrashekhara [2] consists of the
9-noded rectangular plate element and 3-noded beam element
has been used to investigate the free vibration characteristics of
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +84 04 38692775.
E-mail addresses: tranichthinh@yahoo.com (T.I. Thinh), thquocmc4@yahoo.com
(T.H. Quoc).
0927-0256/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.commatsci.2010.05.011

laminated stiffened plates. The formulation requires the nodal

lines of the plate elements to pass through the stiffener. Therefore,
arbitrary oriented stiffeners cannot be analyzed using this formulation. Only open section stiffeners can be modeled by this
formulation.
Edward Sadeck and Samer Tawk [3] used a stiffened plate element that is composed of a rectangular 9-noded rectangular plate
element and a number of 3-noded stiffener elements placed within
the plate element and parallel to the element edges. Lee and Lee [4]
used 9-noded quadrilateral element with 5 of freedom per node
for analysis of vibration of anisotropic plates with eccentric stiffeners. The existing nite element techniques stimulate the stiffener
to pass along the plate nodal lines.
Satsangi and Mukhopadhyay [5] used 8-noded serendipity elements as the plate element and assumed that the stiffeners follow
the same displacement eld as that of the plates. In their investigation, arbitrarily oriented rectangular stiffeners made up of composite laminates have been considered and an efcient formulation
has been presented. However, the stiffener formulation does not
have the capability to incorporate for other shapes such as closed
section stiffeners, which has tremendous practical applications.
In [6] Satish Kumar and Mukhopadhyay used a new nite element for buckling analysis of laminated stiffened plates, the model
based on rst-order shear deformation theory so both the plate
element and the stiffener element include transverse shear deformation based on ReissnerMindlin theory.
Koko and Olson [7] applied a numerical technique for vibration analysis of isotropic stiffened plates. They used a super element which is macro-element having analytical as well as the
usual nite element shape functions. Peng et al. [8] applied the

S384

T.I. Thinh, T.H. Quoc / Computational Materials Science 49 (2010) S383S389

element-free Galerkin (EFG) method to the static analysis of concentrically and eccentrically stiffened plates, the stiffeners need to
be placed along the mesh lines. Akhras and Li [9] developed the
progressive failure analysis for thick composite plates using the
spline nite strip method based on Chos higher order zigzag laminate theory and Lees failure criterion. However, only innitesimal strain was considered in the formulation of the spline nite
strip equations.
Qing et al. [10] developed a novel mathematical model based
on the semi-analytical solution of the state-vector equation theory
for free vibration analysis of stiffened laminated plates. The method accounts for the compatibility of displacements and stresses on
the interface between the plate and stiffeners, the transverse shear
deformation, and naturally the rotary inertia of the plate and stiffeners. Meanwhile, there is no restriction on the thickness of plate
and the height of stiffeners.
Prusty [11] performed a progressive failure analysis by nite
element method based on rst-order shear deformation theory
for laminated unstiffened and stiffened composite panels under
transverse loads and the failure loading was predicted by using
the TsaiWu criterion and the total discount stiffness reduction
model.
Zahari and El-Zafrany [12] developed a progressive damage
analysis methodology for stress analysis of composite laminated
shells using new derivations of nite strip methods based on Mindlins plate-bending theory, where the non-linear equations (nite
strain) were derived using the tangential stiffness matrix approach,
with all integrations over the plate thickness carried out
analytically.
In the previous works, we have used nite element method for
free vibration and bending analysis of laminated stiffened composite plates with laminated open section (rectangular and T) and
closed section (hat or U) stiffeners [13]. In that paper, the natural
frequencies calculated by our model were compared with those
published by other authors but were not compared with experiment. In [14], we analyzed progressive failure of laminated stiffened composite plates by using total discount material properties
of failed layer approach.
In this study, nite element model and experiment on free
vibration and progressive failure of stiffened laminated composite
plates reinforced by laminated open section and closed section
stiffeners under various boundary conditions are investigated.
Our model is based on a higher-order displacement theory which
eliminates the need to use shear correction coefcients and make
the model applicable for both thick and thin stiffened composite
plates. The stiffeners with different types of section can be positioned anywhere within the plate element. The natural frequencies
measured by our experiment are compared with the results calculated by our nite element model. The failure problems of these
stiffened glass ber/polyester composite plates are also investigated by using failure mode in action to discount the mechanical
properties of failed layer.

ap

bp

ht

hs

bs

Fig. 1. Laminated stiffened composite plates.

The displacement eld based on third-order shear deformation

plate theory is given as

u; v ; w uo ; v o ; wo zhx ; hy ; 0 z2 uo ; v o ; 0 z3 hx ; hy ; 0

1
The displacement eld of Ox-stiffener:
st
ust ; v st ; wst usto ; v sto ; wsto zhstx ; hsty ; 0 z2 ust
o ; v o ; 0
st
z3 hst
x ; hy ; 0

where u0, v0, w0 are displacements of a generic point in the middle

plane of the laminate referred to the local axes, x, y, z, directions and
hx, hy are the rotations of the normal to the middle plane about x
axis and y axis. The functions u0 ; v 0 ; hx ; hy are higher order terms
in the Taylor series expansion, dened also in the middle plane.
2.2. Finite element formulation
Using 9-noded isoparametric nite element with 9 degrees of
freedom per node for plate element and 3-noded beam with 5
degrees of freedom per node for stiffener element as in Fig. 2.
The element stiffness of the plate is determined by:

K pe

BT DBdA

8181

And the element mass matrix of plate is obtained as follow:

Mpe
8181

Z
A

NTp mNp dA

where B and Np have been presented in [15] and D can be in the following expression:

A C B D 0
6C E D F 0
6
6
6B D C E 0
6
6
D 6D F E G 0
6
6 0 0 0 0 As
6
6
4 0 0 0 0 Bs
0

0
0
0
0
Bs
Cs

Cs

Ds

3
0
07
7
7
07
7
7
07
7
Cs 7
7
7
Ds 5
Es

2. Theoretical formulation

The geometry of the laminated stiffened composite plate is similar to that shown in Fig. 1. A stiffened plate is composed of a plate
and a number of stiffeners placed inside the plate. Both plate and
stiffeners are made up of laminated composites.
Consider a laminated composite plate which is parallel to the
xy plane. The upper and lower surfaces of the plate are dened
by z = h/2 and z = h/2, respectively, where h is the thickness of
the plate.

y(v)

2.1. Displacement eld

x(u)
3

y(v)
8

4
2

Fig. 2. Plate-stiffener system.

x(u)

S385

T.I. Thinh, T.H. Quoc / Computational Materials Science 49 (2010) S383S389

and

I0
60
6
60
6
6
6 I1
6
m 6
60
6I
6 2
6
60
6
4 I3
0

0
I0
0
0
I1
0
I2
0
I3

0
0
I0
0
0
0
0
0
0

I1
0
0
I2
0
I3
0
I4
0

0
I1
0
0
I2
0
I3
0
I4

I2
0
0
I3
0
I4
0
I5
0

0
I2
0
0
I3
0
I4
0
I5

I3
0
0
I4
0
I5
0
I6
0

0
I3 7
7
07
7
7
07
7
I4 7
7
07
7
7
I5 7
7
05
I6

The element stiffness matrix of the stiffener can be expressed in

following equation:

K stiffener
1515

BTst Dst Bst dx

157 77 715

Dst 77

As
6 Cs
6
6
6 Bs
6
6
6 Ds
6
60
6
40
0

Cs
Es
Ds
Fs
0
0
0

Bs
Ds
Cs
Es
0
0
0

Ds
Fs
Es
Gs
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
Ass
Bss
C ss

0
0
0
0
Bss
C ss
Dss

0
0 7
7
7
0 7
7
0 7
7
7
C ss 7
7
Dss 5
Ess

The nodal displacements of the stiffener element are transformed to the plate element nodes by using the transformation
matrix as:

c1 c2

c1 s2

So we have :

fqst g Kfqg

10

11

n
X
H1 ; H2 ; H3 ; H4 ; H5 Q 44
Ass ; Bss ; C ss ; Dss ; Ess 

12

hs

where fqst g f uos wos hxs

g are nodal degrees of freedom of the stiffeners.


fqg f u0p v 0p w0p hxp hyp u0p v 0p hxp hyp gT are nodal degrees of freedom of the plates.

n
X
H1 ; H2 ; H3 ; H4 ; H5 ; H6 ; H7 Q 11
k1

c 1 c2

6
6 s2 c1
6
K6
6 0
6
4 0

c 2 s1

s2

s2 s1

c2

0
0

k1

c2 c1

c2 s1

c2 c1

c 2 s1

c2 c1

7
0 7
7
0 7
7
7
0 5
c 2 s1
20

Hi zik1  zik =i
with i 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7 and n is number of layers:

13

And the element mass matrix of the stiffener can be expressed

in following equation:
T

Nst  mst Nst dS

14

Since the nodes of the beam element are within the plate element, it is possible to interpolate the nodal displacements of the
beam element from the plate element nodal displacements by
3
3
9
X
X
X
fqst gj
Kj C
fqgi
j1

j1

21

i1

I0

6
60
6
where mst  6
6 I1
6
4 I2
I3

0 I1

I2

0 I2

I3

0 I3
0 I4

I4
I5

I3

where [C] is the transformation matrix of the nodal displacements

from the beam element into the plate element nodes dened as
follows:

7
07
Z Zl1
n
X
7
I4 7
ql
zi dz
7 and Ii
Zl
7
l1
I5 5
I6

C

N1

0 N2

6
6 0 N1 0 0 0
6
N 6
6 0 0 N1 0 0
6
4 0 0 0 N1 0
0 0 0 0 N1

0 N3

0 N2

0 N3

0
0

0 N2 0
0 0 N2

0
0

0
0

0 N2

7
0 7
7
0 N3 0 0 7
7
7
0 0 N3 0 5
0 0 0 N3
0

3 X
9
X
j1

15
2

19
us

k1

1515

18

In which c1, s1, c2, s2 are cosine and sine of the rotational angle
about Oz-axis and Oy-axis.

n
X
As ; Bs ; C s ; Ds ; Es 
H1 ; H2 ; H3 ; H4 ; H5 Q s

M stiffener

7
0 5
c1

s1 s2

k1

s2

c2

s1 c 2

n
X
H1 ; H2 ; H3 ; H4 ; H5 ; H6 ; H7 Q m

As ; Bs ; C s ; Ds ; Es ; F s ; Gs 

17

where Ryz is the rotation matrix about z-axis and y-axis:

6
Ryz 4 s2

where

A; B; C; D; E; F; G

Considering the Ox-directional stiffener (Fig. 3a) is the basic

stiffener.
Other directional stiffeners (Fig. 3b) will be obtained by rotating
Ox-directional stiffener about z-axis by c angles then about yaxis by b angles.

8
9
8
9
>
>
< Us >
=
< Up >
=
Vs
Ryz V p
>
>
>
>
:
;
:
;
Wp
Ws

where

The most difculty in analysis of stiffened laminated composite

plates is to establish the model which allows the stiffeners can be
positioned anywhere within the plates and the stiffener laminations can be either parallel or perpendicular or make any angle
to the laminations of the plates.
In this paper, we propose an approach for that problem as
follows:

(a)

Ni I9 

22

i1

(b)

16

x
Fig. 3. Inclination of stiffeners.

S386

T.I. Thinh, T.H. Quoc / Computational Materials Science 49 (2010) S383S389

where Ni are the plate element shape functions and [I9] is a nine by
nine identity matrix.
P
And we obtain the transformation matrix V 3j1 Kj C.

All dimensions are in mm

hp

500

K sp
e
8181

where

VT

K stiffener
1515

1581 8181

24

2.3. The mass matrix

The mass matrix of a stiffened plate element:

Msp
M pe
e
8181

8181

250

A
A

are the

8181

TT

12

Fig. 4. Composite plate with one Ox-stiffener.

is element stiffness matrix of plate and K st

i

8181 8115

Section A-A

23

opened stiffness matrix of the ith stiffener:

K sti
8181

tst
x

n
X
K pe
K sti
8181
8181
i1

K Pe
8181

hst

1581

T is the transformation matrix which considers the equal displacements at the stiffener-plate junction has been presented in
[15].
Finally, the element stiffness matrix of the stiffened plate is
determined by:

ns
X

M sti
i1 8181

25

where ns is number of stiffener elements in the plate element; Msp

e
8181

is the mass matrix of the stiffened plate; Mpe is the mass matrix of

frequencies of the plates with different size of composite stiffeners

are compared with those in [4] and shown in Table 1.
From Table 1, we can see that for the studied plate the natural
frequencies of a plate with one Ox-stiffener are in good agreement
with those of [4], in which the author used nite element method
based on the rst shear deformation theory with shear correction
factor k = 5/6.
Five rst natural frequencies calculated by our program are almost smaller than that in [4] because this based on third-order
shear deformation theory. This theory no needs using the shear
correction factor.

3.2. Free vibration of laminated stiffened glass ber/polyester

composite plates

8181

the plate; and M st

is the opened mass matrix of the ith stiffener.
i
8181

M sti
8181

TT

VT

8181 8115

Mstiffener
1515

1581 8181

26

2.4. Governing equation

The equilibrium equation for an undamped stiffened structural
system can be expressed as

KfQg fFg
MfQg

27

where [M], [K] and are the assembled consistent mass and stiffness
 are the
matrices, {F} is the assembled nodal load vector, [Q] and Q
nodal displacement and acceleration vectors.
From the equilibrium Eq. (27), let {F} = 0 we obtain the equation
of the free vibration problem as

KfQg 0
MfQg

28

And the equation for static problem is obtained as follows:

KfQ g fFg

29

3. Numerical results
3.1. Validation of the model
In order to check the reliability and accuracy of the present element, we consider the free vibration of clamped stiffened plates
(Fig. 4) made of graphite/epoxy (ASI/3501-6) and studied by
Dong-Min Lee. The geometry of the stiffened laminated plate are
a  b  hp = 500  250  1.04 (mm3), the lamination of plate is
(0/45/90)s. The ply properties are E1 = 128 GPa; E2 = 11 GPa;
G12 = G13 = 1.48 GPa; G23 = 1.53 GPa; m12 = 0.25; q = 1500 kg/m3
for both the plate and the stiffener. The stiffeners are the crossply laminated beam which has the same lamination ratio of 90/
0 ply and perpendicular to the lamination of the plate. The thickness of the stiffener is tst, the height of stiffener is hst. The ve-rst

In this study, composite materials in ship building are used: Eglass bers and polyester resin. The plates with lamination [0/90/
0/90] reinforced by one Ox-stiffener of U, T or rectangular sections of equal cross-sectional areas are made for our free vibration
tests like in Fig. 5. The at plates are made out of four unidirectional plies and polyester; the stiffeners are made of glass ber
in mat and polyester.
Material properties of the plates and stiffeners are determined by experiment [16]: E1p = 10,580 MPa; E2p = 2640 MPa;
G12p = 1020 MPa; G23p = 528 MPa; m12p = 0.19; qp = 1600 kg/m3;
XTp = 381.0 MPa; XCp = 271.6 MPa; YTp = 40.0 MPa; Tp = 20.0 MPa;
Sp = 20.0 MPa; Rp = 145.2 MPa; E1s = 4807 MPa; E2s = 4807 MPa;
G12s = 2054 MPa; G23s = 961 MPa; m12s = 0.17; qs = 1400 kg/m3;
XTs = 78.8 MPa; XCs = 142.9 MPa; YTs = 78.8 MPa; YCs = 84.7 MPa;
Ts = 25.0 MPa; Ss = 25.0 MPa; Rs = 69.4 MPa. The plates and stiffeners are under different boundary conditions.
The plates and stiffeners are under different boundary conditions.
The results on three rst natural frequencies for 6  10 ninenode elements are compared with experimental ones in Tables 3
and 4. Three vibration modes of clamped composite plates with
different shape of stiffeners are shown in Fig. 6.

Table 1
Effect of size of stiffeners on free vibration frequencies of laminated stiffened
composite plates.
Model
no.

Size of stiffener
tst  hst

00

1.56  4.5

2.06  7.5

3.64  10.5

5.20  15.0

Five-rst frequencies of the plate (Hz)

[4]
Present
[4]
Present
[4]
Present
[4]
Present
[4]
Present

85.1
85.1
108.3
107.7
170.6
168.4
213.8
212.2
227.8
228.4

134.0
134.1
207.3
205.1
209.2
207.2
229.4
225.3
270.2
263.4

207.4
207.9
214.9
211.9
257.7
255.4
270.2
268.8
294.5
293.7

216.1
216.5
252.3
249.9
292.9
287.9
313.8
308.6
321.8
316.1

252.5
253.1
329.2
326.1
338.4
335.5
354.0
352.0
373.7
371.5

S387

T.I. Thinh, T.H. Quoc / Computational Materials Science 49 (2010) S383S389

y

0 /90 /0 /90

0 /90 /0 /90

250

30

3.6

1.8

40

125

450

30

4.8

Section A-A

(a)

(b)

All dimensions are in mm

Fig. 5. Laminated stiffened glass ber/polyester composite plates.

Table 2
Natural frequencies (Hz) of stiffened glass ber/polyester composite plates clamped at four edges.
Mode no.

Rec stiffener

1
2
3

T-shaped stiffener

U-shaped stiffener

Fem

Exp

(%)

Fem

Exp

(%)

Fem

Exp

(%)

185.6
244.53
249.03

172.1
223.3
225.4

7.8
9.5
10.5

213.5
251.2
269.9

196.8
229.4
236.1

8.5
9.5
14.3

251.2
255.6
275.7

226.6
231.2
238.5

10.9
9.5
15.6

Table 3
Natural frequencies (Hz) of stiffened glass ber/polyester composite plates clamped at 2 Oy edges and two other edges are free.
Mode no.

Rec stiffener

1
2
3

T-shaped stiffener

U-shaped stiffener

Fem

Exp

(%)

Fem

Exp

(%)

Fem

Exp

(%)

41.4
52.2
87.1

39.1
48.0
79.9

5.9
8.8
9.0

46.9
52.2
89.5

44.0
48.5
80.9

6.6
7.6
10.6

51.5
52.2
90.1

47.7
48.9
81.2

8.0
6.7
11.0

From above mode shapes of stiffened plate with open and

closed sections of stiffeners, we can see that three mode shapes
of the plate reinforced by U-stiffener are different from those of
the plate reinforced by T and rectangular stiffeners.

Stiffeners

Mode 1

Mode 2

Mode 3

(185.6 Hz)

(244.53 Hz)

(249.03 Hz)

(213.5 Hz)

(251.2 Hz)

(269.9 Hz)

(251.2 Hz)

(255.6 Hz)

(275.7 Hz)

Rec.

3.3. Experimental study on free vibration of laminated stiffened glass

ber/polyester composite plates
T shaped

In order to validate above calculated results by our model, some

experimental tests (Fig. 7) on free vibration were performed for
those specimens which were shown in Section 3.2.
Three rst natural frequencies of stiffened plates clamped at
four edges and clamped at 2 Oy edges were measured by using a
Multi-vibration measuring machine (DEWE BOOK-DASYLab
5.61.10) and are given in Tables 2 and 3.
Remark: (. . .%) denotes the error percent between FE results and
experimental ones.
From Tables 2 and 3, it is seen that natural frequencies obtained
from numerical calculations are in good agreements with those of

U
shaped

Fig. 6. Mode shapes of clamped stiffened plate.

the experimental investigation, the difference ranges from 7.8% to

15.6% in case of the plates clamped at all four edges and from 5.9%
to 11% in case of the plates clamped at 2 oy edges and 2 other edges

Table 4
First ply failure loads and ultimate failure loads (MPa) of a stiffened plate with U, T and rectangular sections of stiffeners under uniformly distributed load.
Boundary
conditions
Stiffener
prole

Simply support
Rec.

T-shaped

U-shaped

Rec.

T-shaped

U-shaped

FFL

0.4058

0.4126

0.4687

0.8010

0.8015

0.8724

0.4070

0.4139

0.4701

0.8100

0.8108

0.8864

0.5635

0.7675

0.7326

1.6314

1.7473

1.7241

0.5641

0.9200

0.7349

1.6365

2.0944

1.7300

Top of layer 4;
bottom of layer 1;
mid of stiffener

Top of layer 4;
bottom of layer 1;
mid of stiffener

Top of layer 4; bottom

of layer 1; edge of
stiffener

Top of layer 4; bottom

of layer 1; edge of
stiffener

Top of layer 4;
bottom of layer 1;
mid of stiffener

Top of layer 4; bottom of

layer 1, bottom; edge of
stiffener

UFL

M.
stress
Tsai
Wu
M.
stress
Tsai
Wu

Failed
location

Clamped on four edges

S388

T.I. Thinh, T.H. Quoc / Computational Materials Science 49 (2010) S383S389

Fig. 7. Experimental set-up.

free. Both numerical and experimental results show that among

three studied stiffened plates having an equal volume of materials,
the stiffened plate with U-stiffener has bigger frequency than the
plate with T or rectangular stiffeners.
3.4. Progressive failure of stiffened laminated composite plates
Under a given bending load, the stresses at each integration
point in the laminate are calculated in the material coordinate system. Then, the stresses are substituted into the failure criterion. If
any failure occurs, the material properties of the lamina at that
point are degraded according to the mode of failure as follows:
Matrix failure: E22, m12 are degraded.
Shear failure: G12, G23 and m12 are degraded.
Fiber failure: E11, E22, m12, G12, G23 are degraded.

4. Conclusion

where E11 and E22 are the elastic moduli; G12, G23 are the shear
moduli; m12 is Poissons ratio.
The load is increased step-by-step, and the above analysis is repeated, until no additional lamina failure is detected. Finally after a
ply-by-ply analysis, the ultimate failure load of a laminate is
achieved.
Two failure criteria usually used for analysis of failure of
composite structure are Maximum stress criterion and TsaiWu
criterion.
3.4.1. Maximum stress criterion
In the maximum stress criterion, failure of any composite layer
is assumed to occur if any one of the following conditions is
satised:

r1 > X T r2 > Y T r4 > R r5 > S r6 > T

The plates and stiffeners are under different boundary conditions and subject to bending uniform load. The results on rstply failure loads and ultimate loads are shown in Table 4.
It can be seen from Table 4 that after the initial failure, the loads
can be increased by about from 38% to 86% in case of simply supported boundary condition and the load can be increased by about
110% in case of clamped at four edges.
The rst-ply failure loads of the plates with U-stiffener are biggest and much more bigger than that of the plates with T or rectangular stiffener. The failure loads of the stiffened plates under
clamped on four edges boundary condition are much bigger than
ones under simply supported on four edges.
Failed position occurs at different locations depending on different types of sections of stiffeners.

30

where r1, r2 are the normal stress components, r4, r5 and r6 are
shear stress components, XT, YT are the lamina tensile strengths in
the 1, 2 directions and R, S and T are the shear strengths in the
23, 13 and 12 planes, respectively. When r1, r2 are of a compressive
nature they should be compared with XC, YC, which are normal
strengths in compression along the 1, 2 directions, respectively.
3.4.2. The TsaiWu criterion
According to this theory, failure of a composite layer is assumed
to occur if the following condition is satised:




 
1
1
r1 r2 rT6 2 P 1
 X1C r1 Y1T  Y1C r2 X T1X C r21 Y T1Y C r22  p
XT
XT XC Y T Y C

31

In this example, we use two above criteria to calculate rst-ply

failure loads (FFL) and ultimate failure loads (UFL) of the stiffened
plates which have considered in the example 2.

Finite element model for analysis of laminated stiffened composite plates based on higher-order deformation theory have
established. Experimental studies on vibration of laminated stiffened composite plates with different types of section of stiffeners
are also performed. Based on the numerical and experimental results presented in this paper the following conclusions can be
drawn:
Experimental natural frequencies are in good agreement with
those calculated by nite element model.
For three studied glass ber/polyester stiffened plates which
have an equal volume of materials, the laminated stiffened plate
with one U-stiffener shows bigger frequency than the plate with
T and rectangular sections of stiffeners. Mode shapes of stiffened plate with U-stiffener are different with those of stiffened
plate with T or rectangular stiffener.
After the rst-ply failure, laminated stiffened composite plates
can carry out more and more additional bending load. Failed
positions depend on the types of sections of stiffeners so it is
noted when designing laminated stiffened composite plates.

Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the National Foundation for
Science & Technology Development of Vietnam.
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