Damage analysis and dynamic response of elasto-plastic laminated composite shallow spherical shell under low velocity impact

Based on the elasto-plastic mechanics, the damage analysis and dynamic response of an elasto-plastic laminated composite shallow spherical shell under low velocity impact are carried out in this paper. Firstly, a yielding criterion related to spherical tensor of stress is proposed to model the mixed hardening orthotropic material, and accordingly an incremental elasto-plastic damage constitutive relation for the laminated shallow spherical shell is founded when a strain-based Hashin failure criterion is applied to assess the damage initiation and propagation. Secondly, using the presented constitutive relations and the classical nonlinear shell theory, a series of incremental nonlinear motion equations of orthotropic moderately thick laminated shallow spherical shell are obtained. The questions are solved by using the orthogonal collocation point method, Newmark method and iterative method synthetically. Finally, a modified elasto-plastic contact law is developed to determine the normal contact force and the effect of damage, geometrical parameters, elasto-plastic contact and boundary conditions on the contact force and the dynamic response of the structure under low velocity impact are investigated. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.