Expansion of plastic zone and residual stresses in the thermoplastic-matrix laminated plates ([0°/θ°]2) with a rectangular hole subjected to transverse uniformly distributed load expansion

The present paper focused on the understanding of elastic stress, residual stress and plastic zone growth in layers of stainless steel woven fiber-reinforced thermoplastic matrix composite laminated plates with rectangular hole by using the finite element method (FEM) and first-order shear deformation theory for small deformations. Moreover, the computer program was developed for small elasto-plastic stress analysis of laminated plates. The laminated plate with rectangular hole consists of four reinforced layers bonded symmetrically and antisymmetrically in [0°/θ°]2 configuration. Various applied distributed loads with different layer orientation angles and rectangular hole dimensions were used for obtaining corresponding variation of residual stresses and the expansions of the plastic regions. It was observed that the intensity of the stress components and plastic zones were the maximum near corners of the rectangular hole.