A general solution for stress resultants around a circular cutout in laminate plates under different in-plane loadings: analytical and experimental investigations

The current work focuses on extending the analytical solution given by Greszczuk to determine the stress distribution in multilayered composite plates subjected to arbitrary in-plane loadings. This is achieved by introducing an arbitrary oriented uniaxial, biaxial, and shear loading conditions into Greszczuk solution. The present solution has exactly reproduced most of the results of the analytical solution existing in the literature. The varying parameters, such as fiber orientation angle, type and load orientation, stacking sequence, and anisotropic modulus ratio , are examined. In the second part of this study, digital image correlation (DIC) technique is used to obtain full-field surface strain measurements in unidirectional E-glass/epoxy specimens with different fiber orientation angles, in order to show its effect on stress concentration and failure modes. The analytical results obtained by the present solution compare favorably with those obtained using DIC technique. Compared to the experimental data, the accuracy of the present approach is within 10%. The simplicity of the present solution gives the design engineer a useful tool for optimizing laminate plates in the presence of a circular cutout.