ICASE 2015 IST Islamabad, Pakistan

Optimal Design of Laminated Composites

K. Hayat1,*, H. T. Ali2, X. Lei3, M.T. Hussain4, B. Batul4
1

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Lahore, 1-kM Raiwind Road Lahore, Pakistan
2
Dept. of Aerospace Eng., Queen's Building, University of Bristol, BS8 1TR, UK
3
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang University, South Korea
4
Satellite Research and Development Center, Lahore, Pakistan

Off-axis fiber angles of laminated composites of a wind turbine blade skin layup should be optimally selected so that a laminate can
exhibit adequate stiffness, strength, bend-twist coupling, buckling stability, and fatigue resistance. Keeping all above in view, a detailed
parametric study is conducted to determine the optimal ply-angles of a typical tri-axial (TX) skin laminate with conventional 45 degrees
off-axis fiber angle of the angled plies. Results show that lower angles (i.e. close to 0-degree) are more appropriate to achieve higher
stiffness, strength and fatigue resistance. The highest coupling magnitude can be achieved by generating ply-angle, ply-thickness and
ply-material based unbalances. Moreover, for enhanced buckling resistance, a higher off-axis fiber angle of plies close to 45 degrees is
more effective.
Index Terms Laminated composites, In-plane loads, Parametric study

I. INTRODUCTION
Laminated fiber reinforced plastics (FRPs) composites are
widely used in advance engineering applications due to their
light weight and highly directional stiffness and strength
properties compared to the conventional metals counterparts.
One of typical applications is large-scale wind turbine blades
made of FRP composite used to achieve a lighter, stronger and
stiffer blade design.
The large-scale wind turbine blades capture more energy, and
offer a cost-effective and efficient solution. Traditional
composite design practices are restricted to use only symmetric
and balanced biaxial (BX:[]S) and triaxial (TX:[02 /]s )
composite laminates, with off-axis fiber angle of 45 degrees
in the skin layup of large-scale composite blades. For example,
the skin layup of a 5 MW wind turbine blade, of length 61.5 m,
mainly consists of TX:[02 /45]s laminate [1], hereafter
denoted as TX45. Since a wind turbine blade is a slender beam
structure, therefore, the off-axis fiber angle of 45 degrees of the
TX skin laminate is not an optimal selection.
Complicate blade geometry, huge number of plies in the
composite layup and the presence of a variety of loading
conditions, makes optimization of the laminated composites
laminates in the skin layup of the blade a daunting task. In
addition, it is difficult to simultaneously fulfill the design
requirements of adequate stiffness, strength, buckling stability
and fatigue resistance as specified by the wind turbine standards
[2, 3]. For this purpose, a preliminary parametric study of the
TX laminate of the blade skin layup is carried out in this paper.
The TX laminate is selected to perform the parametric study
because it is typically used in the skin layup of large-scale wind
turbine blades [1, 4].
A wind turbine blade can be considered as hollow beam
structure, consisting of thin skin layup that can be assumed to
be in plane-stress conditions. Thus, a TX:[02 /]s skin
laminate can be optimized using classical laminate theory
(CLT). This preliminary parametric study can provide a deep
insight to the optimization process of a complete skin layup of
Corresponding author: *K. Hayat (e-mail: khazar.hayat@me.uol.edu.pk)

the composite wind turbine blade structure. The results of

parametric study can also be extended to perform a multiobjective optimization in which an optimal off-axis fiber angle
of TX:[02 /]s laminate can be found by simultaneously
evaluating the stiffness, strength, buckling stability and fatigue
design requirement.
II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
A wind turbine blade consists of two halves, represented by
pressure-side (PS) and suction-side (SS), which are connected
together with shear webs fitted between them, as shown in
Figure 1. The PS and SS layups are mainly made of TX external
and internal skin laminates. The BX skin laminate are used for
shear webs. There are unidirectional (UD) spar caps on both PS
and SS, to withstand the bending loads.
The outer aerodynamic shape of blade is maintained using TX
skin laminates and foam core construction. Foam core material
is used to enhance the buckling resistance. Traditional design
of a blade skin layup is to use TX laminate with 45 degrees
oriented off-axis angles. However, by finding an optimal offaxis fiber angle of TX skin laminates, a lighter, stiffer and
stronger blade design can be achieved [1].

Figure 1. Typical composite skin layup construction of a wind turbine blade

[1].

The incident wind and other kind of loads generate tensile and
compressive regions on the blade PS and SS, respectively. Due
to thin skin layup of a wind turbine blade, the TX laminates on
PS and SS, can be assumed to experience a plan-stress
conditions (i.e. the out-of-plane stresses are assumed to be
zero), as shown in Figure 2. The TX laminates on the PS and
SS are subjected to combined in-plane tensile and shear stresses

ICASE 2015 IST Islamabad, Pakistan

and combined in-plane compressive and shear stresses,

respectively. Since, a wind turbine blade is a slender beam
structure, therefore, the effect of in-plane transverse stresses
can be ignored, due to their small magnitude.

Figure 2. Pressure-side (PS) and suction-side (SS) skin laminates under planestress conditions.

A.

Stiffness and Strength

Under plane-stress conditions, the relation between in-plane

stresses and in-plane strains for a UD ply oriented along the offaxes 12, shown in Figure 3, are [5]:
11 Q
12 Q
16 1
Q
1
12 Q
22 Q
26 ] [2 ]
Eq. 1
[2 ] = [Q
6
16 Q
26 Q
66 6
Q
ij are the elements of the off-axis stiffness matrix in
where Q
coordinate system12, oriented to the ply on-axis coordinate
system 1 2 through angle .

Figure 3. Off-axis stiffness of unidirectional (UD) ply along axes 12.

A composite laminate consists of UD plies oriented in

difference directions. Under plane-stress condition, the in-plane
strains and in-plane stresses of a composite laminate with
orthotropic axes xy, as shown in Figure 4a, are related to each
other through ABD stiffness matrix, as [5];
x
A11 A12 A16 B11 B12 B16 x
y
A12 A22 A26 B12 B22 B26 y
z
A16 A26 A66 B16 B26 B66 z
yz = B11 B12 B16 D11 D12 D16 yz Eq. 2
xz
B12 B22 B26 D12 D22 D26 xz
[xy ] [ B16 B26 B66 D16 D26 D66 ] [xy ]
Where the elements of ABD matrix in Eq. 2 are computed as:
ij dz,
ij zdz,
ij z 2 dz,
Aij = Q
Bij = Q
and
Dij = Q
respectively.
Apart from the laminate stiffness, the strength properties also
play a pivotal role in defining the intended use of the structure.
A frequently, ply-stress-based Tsai-Wu failure criterion, also
called quadratic failure criterion, is widely accepted by the
composite designers. According to Tsai-Wu failure criterion
[5]:
Fxx 2x + Fyy 2y + Fss 2s + 2Fxy x y + Fx x
Eq. 3
+ Fy y = 1
Where Fxx =
1

1
XX

( ), with

, Fyy =

1
YY

, Fss =

1
SS

, Fx = ( ), Fy =

X, X, Y and Y representing the UD ply

longitudinal tensile, longitudinal compressive, transverse

tensile and transverse compressive strengths, respectively. The
symbol Fxy is an interaction parameter and is computed
as Fxy =

2XXYY

B. Buckling Resistance
One of the design requirements for a composite layup of a wind
turbine blade is to demonstrate adequate buckling stability. The
TX skin laminates on the blade SS are subjected to either
compressive load or combined compressive and shear loads. In
order to compute the critical buckling load, the panel bucking
theory is used. The theory is restricted to orthotropic
rectangular composite laminate with dimensions Lx and Ly and
simply supported on the edges. The theory is based on elastic,
thin plate, small deflection, CLT in which the rectangular
composite plate is considered to behave as a homogeneous
orthotropic material whose orthotropic axes xy are aligned with
the plate edges. The theory takes into account the axial
compressive and shear loads, governed by the D matrix defined
by CLT [5].

Figure 4. (a) Orthotropic plate, (b) in-plane compression load, (c) in-plane
shear load, and (d) combined in-plane compression and shear loads.

The plate subjected to in-plane compressive loads Nx and Ny

only, which do not vary with x and y directions, these internal
in-plane forces are related to loads Nx0 and Ny0 , where is
the load parameter. For a buckled plate the load parameter is
denoted by cr , and is determined by [5]:
i 4
(cr )ij = 2 [D11 ( )
Lx
i 2 j
+ 2(D12 + 2D66 ) ( ) ( )
Lx
Ly
4

j
+ D22 ( ) ]
Ly
2

Eq. 4

i 2
j
/ [Nx0 ( ) + Ny0 ( ) ]
Lx
Ly
Where (cr )ij must be computed for different set of i and j (i.e.
i, j = 1,2, ). For simply supported orthotropic plates, the
lowest buckling load corresponds to a mode that has a half wave
in at least one direction.
On other hand, for an orthotropic plate subjected to pure shear
0
load, the critical buckling load Nxy
,cr can be estimated as [5]:
4
4
1
0
Eq. 5
Nxy
,cr = 2 D11 D322 0 K 1
Lx

ICASE 2015 IST Islamabad, Pakistan

where 1 = 8.125 + 5.045K, K = (2D66 + D12 )D11 D22 .

R x + R1.9+0.1K
=1
xy
Nx ,cr Nx0 ,cr

Eq. 6
0
Nxy ,cr Nxy
,cr :

where R x =
and R xy =
with Nx ,cr
representing critical compression when the in-plane
compression and shear are combined, Nx0 ,cr representing critical
compression when only in-plane compression is applied, Nxy ,cr
representing critical shear load when in-plane compression and
0
shear loads are combined, and Nxy
,cr representing shear load
when only the in-plane shear load is applied.
C.

Bend-twist Coupling

The life of wind turbine blades can be increased by reducing

the incident fluctuating loads with passive control that can be
realized by implanting bend-twist coupling (BTC) feature [6].
The BTC describes the dynamic interaction between the blade
bending and torsion deformations. Under the influence of
aerodynamic loads the blade twists as it bends, which causes a
change in the angle of attack, consequently, directly altering the
incident loads [7]. A desired BTC magnitude can be achieved
by effectively utilizing the anisotropic properties of the blade
composite skin layup, known as aero-elastic tailoring [8, 9].
The magnitude of BTC that can be achieved depends on the
amount of unbalance present in the skin layup of blade.
However, the conventional skin layup of a blade is made of
symmetric and balanced laminates. In order to achieve BTC of
the highest magnitude, there are three kinds of unbalances that
can be generated in a skin laminate. For example, the three
kinds of unbalances which are ply-angle, ply-material and plythickness based unbalances, that can be developed in a BX
laminate are shown in Figure 5, where G and C represent glass
and carbon ply-materials, and represent ply-angles, and t1
and t 2 represent ply-thicknesses.

m represent minimum stress, maximum stress, mean stress and

stress amplitude, respectively. A CLD describes the
relationship between the mean and amplitude components of
fatigue stress ratio; and is made by combining the SN curves
measured or estimated at typical R ratios of 0.1 representing to
pure tension (T-T) loading, -1 representing for tensioncompression (T-C) for full-reversed loading and 10 for pure
compression (C-C) loading as recommend in [14]. The number
of cycles to failure is then extrapolated for other fatigue stress
ratios.
min m a
R=
=
Eq. 8
max m + a
The wind turbine standard Germanischer-Lloyd (GL)
recommends a simplified approach to evaluate the fatigue life
using a linear CLD, shown in Eq. 9 and plotted in Figure 6. The
number of fatigue cycles to failure Nf for a combination of mean
and amplitude components of the fatigue stress ratio (1,m , 1,a )
can be estimated as [15]:
m
X + X |2Ma 1,m X + X |
Eq. 9
Nf = [
]
2(Mb C1b )1,a
where X and X represent tensile and compressive strengths of
the laminate, and Ma and Mb represent the partial safety
factors of strength and fatigue based analyses. The C1b
parameter (i.e. C1b = N1/m ) defines the fatigue curve for
applied number of cycles N and slope parameter m. If no SNcurve data is available, then, the value of m can be assumed to
be 9 and 10 for glass fiber reinforce plastics (GRP) with
polyester resin matrix and epoxy resin matrix, and 14 for carbon
fiber reinforced plastics (CRP) [15].

Figure 5. Unbalance in a bi-axial laminate due to: (a) ply-angle, (b) plymaterial, and (c) ply-thickness based biasness, respectively, reproduced from
[6].

The BTC magnitude due to unbalance in the TX laminate, can

be estimated in terms of a normalized parameter called BTC
interaction parameter . For a laminate, the interaction
parameter can be computed as [10]:
D16
=
Eq. 7
D11 D66
where Dij is the term representing the laminate bending
stiffness matrix D that depends on the fiber orientation angle.
D.

Fatigue Life

The fatigue life of a wind turbine blade is evaluated using the

SN-curves and the constant life diagram (CLD) [11-13]. The
SN-curves represent the fatigue life in terms of number of
fatigue cycles to failure Nf for an applied fatigue stress ratio R.
The stress ratio R is defined by Eq. 8, where min , max , a and

Figure 6. Linear constant life diagram (CLD) as per GL guidelines [15].

E.

Material Properties

Table 1 lists the stiffness properties of Glass/Epoxy and

Carbon/Epoxy materials used. For the parametric study of
stiffness, buckling stability, BTC of the TX skin laminate, the
stiffness properties of Glass/Epoxy were used. The stiffness
properties of Carbon/Epoxy material were also used to generate
BTC, based on the ply-material based unbalanced, by replacing
the Glass fibers material with Carbon fibers material, as
discussed previously in Section II.C.
In order to perform the parametric study from the strength and
fatigue life of the TX skin laminate, the strength properties of
Glass/Epoxy UD ply are listed in
Table 2. It should be noted that the strengths of TX: [02 /]
skin laminate at various off-axis fiber angle were derived
using Tsai-Wu failure criterion, represented by Eq. 3.

ICASE 2015 IST Islamabad, Pakistan

Table 1. UD ply stiffness properties, reproduced from [6].

Stiffness (GPa)
tPly
Type
(mm) Ex Ey
Exy
Glass (E-glass) / Epoxy
1 43.2 12.6 4.2
Carbon (T300) / Epoxy
1
155 9
3.5

Poisson
ratio
0.28
0.30

and compressive longitudinal strengths is approximately 104%

and 36%, respectively.

Table 2. Strength properties of UD Eglass/Epoxy ply, reproduced from [1].

X
972

X
702

Strength (MPa)
Y
40

Y
140

S
30

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Figure 7 shows the polar plot of the normalized stiffness
variation of TX:[02 /] skin laminate. The highest
longitudinal stiffness E1 occurs at 0 degree off-axis fiber
angle . The highest transverse and shear stiffnesses,
represented by E2 and G, occur at 90 degrees and 45 degrees
off-axis fiber angles, respectively. The conventional TX:[02 /
45] laminate, although, it demonstrates the highest shear
stiffness, but the longitudinal and transverse stiffnesses are not
optimal for the 45 degrees off-axis fiber angle . Considering,
the beam-type structure of the wind turbine blade, the
longitudinal stiffness plays a key role in limiting the blade
bending deflection. Therefore, use of lower off-axis fiber angle
less than that of conventional 45 degrees off-axis fiber angle, is
more appropriate. For example, the use of 25 degrees off-axis
fiber angle increases the longitudinal stiffnesses by
approximately 30%, however, reduces the transverse and shear
stiffnesses by approximately 23% and 20%, respectively. For
slender blade, the transverse stiffness is of relatively less
significance. In addition, even though the reduction in the shear
stiffness occurs, but still, in many cases, is adequate for torsion
and buckling stability.

Figure 8. Normalized strength variation.

Figure 9 shows the buckling load factor variation for

TX:[02 /] laminate. In case of pure in-plane compressive
load, the 0 degree off-axis fiber angle shows better buckling
resistance; and it decreases with the decrease in off-axis fiber
angle. However, with the addition of a foam core material (i.e.
with thickness: 6% of total thickness) between the plies of TX
laminate the bucking resistance increases by 27% on average.

Figure 9. Buckling load factor variation for compression load.

Figure 7. Polar plot representing normalized stiffness variation.

Figure 8 shows the variation in the normalized strengths of the

TX:[02 /] skin laminate. When the conventional off-axis
fiber angle of 45 degrees is reduced, there is a significant
increase in the tensile longitudinal and compressive
longitudinal strengths, represented by X and X, respectively.
On the other hand, the tensile transverse, compressive
transverse and shear strengths, represented by Y, Y and S, are
least affected. For a decrease in the off-axis fiber angle from 45
degrees to 25 degrees, the increase in the tensile longitudinal

Figure 10. Buckling load factor variation for combined compression and
shear load.

In case of combined in-plane compressive and shear loads, the

45 degrees off-axis fiber angle demonstrates the highest
buckling resistance, as shown in Figure 10. The buckling
resistance decreases with an increase in the contribution of inplane shear load. For an increase in the in-plane shear load of
10% and 20%, there is an average decrease in the buckling
resistance of approximately 0.17% and 0.30%, respectively.

ICASE 2015 IST Islamabad, Pakistan

It has been pointed previously, in Section II.C, that the highest

magnitude of BTC that can be generated, depends on the
amount of unbalance present in the TX laminate. There can be
three kinds of unbalances, i.e. ply-angle, ply-thickness and plymaterial based, that can be implanted in a skin laminate. In
order to generate the unbalance types, the parameter
representing ply-angle unbalance, t representing ply-thickness
unbalance, and m representing ply-material unbalance, were
defined for the TX skin laminate, as shown in Figure 11. Based
on ply-angle unbalance only, it can be clearly seen that the offaxis angle of approximately 27 degrees provided the highest
BTC value of 0.07. In addition, ply-thickness unbalance
achieved by increasing the thickness of ply of TX laminate
from 0.25% to 0.375%, increases the value of BTC to
approximately 0.09. The ply-material unbalance was then
further added to TX laminate by replacing the Eglass/Epoxy
material with Carbon/Epoxy material. When all three kinds of
unbalances coexisted, then, the highest value BTC achieved
was 0.15. It should be noted that the highest value BTC means
that the higher load reductions are possible, as demonstrated in
[6].

to 1.151021 for stress ratio -1, and from 1.051012 to 1.991014

for stress ratio 10. Consequently, increase in the fatigue life
occurred at lower off-axis fiber angle.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
The parametric study of TX skin laminate, typically used in the
skin layup of composite blade, demonstrates that the lower offaxis fiber angles close to 0 degree are appropriate in achieving
higher stiffness, strength and fatigue life. From buckling
stability point of view, the presence of in-plane shear load
makes the 45 degrees off-axis fiber angle more favorable. For
implantation of special features like BTC, the use of 27 degrees
off-axis fiber angle, in addition to ply-thickness and plymaterial based unbalances, can be used to materialize the
highest BTC magnitude. In a similar manner, the parametric
study can also be extended to the conventional BX:[45] skin
laminate, and optimal off-axis fiber angle can be selected
accordingly. Finally, it is suggested that the optimal angle for
off-axis plies of TX and BX skin laminates should be selected
by performing multi-objective optimization in order to achieve
a stiffer, stronger blade design, demonstrating higher buckling
stability and fatigue life, as well as possessing bend-twist
coupling.
V. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are thankful to the their colleagues Professor Dr.
Iqbal Hussain and Associate Professor Dr. Aamir Khan of
Mechanical Department at the University of Lahore, Main
campus, 1-kM Raiwind Road, Lahore, Pakistan, for their timely
help and support.

Figure 11. Estimation of bend-twist coupling.

Figure 12. Estimation of fatigue SN-curve.

Figure 12 shows the fatigue SN curves plotted for TX: [02 /]

laminate for typical fatigue stress ratios of: 0.1 representing
tension-tension fatigue load, -1 representing tensioncompression fatigue load, and 10 representing compressioncompression fatigue load. For all stress ratios, the number of
cycles to failure Nf increase with a decrease in the off-axis fiber
angle . For a decrease in the off-axis fiber angle from 45
degrees to 25 degrees, the number of cycles to failure increased
from 2.671012 to 1.901015 for stress ratio 0.1, from 3.161018

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