Course Contents 1. Classical Lamination Theory
a. Short Overview of Materials. Composites Design Philosophy
b. Theory of Elasticity
c. Engineering Constants
d. Stress & Strain Transformations / Implications for Testing
e. Thin laminates
2. Progressive damage analysis
a. Failure criteria
b. First ply failure & Last ply failure
c. Damage tolerance analysis
3. Reliability analysis & Health monitoring
a. Probability of Failure & Uncertainty quantification
b. Structural Health Monitoring
4. Basic Stress Solutions and Buckling of Composite Plates
a. Typical Airframe Elements
b. Airframe Design Process, Materials & Damage
c. Plate Governing Equations / Solution of the PDE
d. Energy Minimization Methods
e. Buckling of Composite Plates
Study Goals The students should develop in-depth understanding and insight with regard to the basic mechanics of composite materials and
structures, and be able to apply the lectures theories and methods to tackle a variety of basic composite design problems. In
addition, the students should become able to expand the provided analysis tools towards more advanced solutions for their
graduation thesis work. Furthermore, the students should be able to understand and apply related scientific literature.
At the end of this course the student will be able to:
- Understand the basic mechanics of composite materials and structures as listed under "course content"
- Show insight into the theory of progressive damage analysis of composite materials and structures by applying the theory and
methods and tools listed under the course contents to solve a variety of basic composite structure design problems
- Understand the philosophy of reliability analysis and calculate the probability of failure of composite structures by
combining numerical methods and the mechanics of composite structures
- Understand the importance of structural health monitoring (SHM) and design a SHM system for a given composite structure
- Demonstrate the ability to expand the theory, methods and tools towards more advanced solutions in real practice such as
students may encounter during their thesis
- Understand, select on relevance, and apply additional theory, tools and methods on composite materials and structures found in
relevant scientific literature to (design) problems based on the material taught in class
