Buckling of axially compressed composite cylinders with geometric imperfections

Fathollah Taheri-Behrooz,Milad Omidi 국제구조공학회 2018 Steel and Composite Structures, An International J Vol.29 No.4

Cylindrical shell structures buckle at service loads which are much lower than their associated theoretical buckling loads. The main source of this discrepancy is the presence of various imperfections which are created on the cylinder body during different processes as manufacturing, handling, assembling and machining. Many cylindrical shell structures are still designed against buckling based on the experimental data introduced by NASA SP-8007 as conservative lower bound curves. This study employed the numerical based Linear Buckling mode shape Imperfection (LBMI) method and modified it using a stochastic method to assess the effect of geometrical imperfections in more details on the buckling of cylindrical shells with and without the cutout. The comparison of results with those obtained from the numerical Simcple Perturbation Load Imperfection (SPLI) method for cylinders with and without cutout revealed a good correlation. The effect of two parameters of size and number of cutouts on the buckling load was investigated using the linear buckling and Modified LBMI methods. Results confirmed that in cylinders with a small cutout inserting geometrical imperfection using either SPLI or modified LBMI methods significantly reduced the value of the predicted buckling load. However, in cylinders with larger cutouts, the effect of the cutout is dominant, thus considering geometrical imperfection had a minor effect on the buckling loads predicted by both SPLI and modified LBMI methods. Furthermore, the modified LBMI method was employed to evaluate the combination effect of cutout numbers and size on the buckling load. It is shown that in small cutouts, an increasing in the cutout size up to a certain value resulted in a remarkable reduction of the buckling load, and beyond that limit, the buckling loads were constant against D/R ratios. In addition, the cutout number shows a more significant effect on decreasing the buckling load at small D/R ratios than large D/R ratios.

A 3D RVE model with periodic boundary conditions to estimate mechanical properties of composites

Fathollah Taheri-Behrooz,Emad Pourahmadi 국제구조공학회 2019 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.72 No.6

Micromechanics is a technique for the analysis of composites or heterogeneous materials which focuses on the components of the intended structure. Each one of the components can exhibit isotropic behavior, but the microstructure characteristics of the heterogeneous material result in the anisotropic behavior of the structure. In this research, the general mechanical properties of a 3D anisotropic and heterogeneous Representative Volume Element (RVE), have been determined by applying periodic boundary conditions (PBCs), using the Asymptotic Homogenization Theory (AHT) and strain energy. In order to use the homogenization theory and apply the periodic boundary conditions, the ABAQUS scripting interface (ASI) has been used along with the Python programming language. The results have been compared with those of the Homogeneous Boundary Conditions method, which leads to an overestimation of the effective mechanical properties. According to the results, applying homogenous boundary conditions results in a 33% and 13% increase in the shear moduli G23 and G12, respectively. In polymeric composites, the fibers have linear and brittle behavior, while the resin exhibits a non-linear behavior. Therefore, the nonlinear effects of resin on the mechanical properties of the composite material is studied using a user-defined subroutine in Fortran (USDFLD). The non-linear shear stress-strain behavior of unidirectional composite laminates has been obtained. Results indicate that at arbitrary constant stress as 80 MPa in-plane shear modulus, G12, experienced a 47%, 41% and 31% reduction at the fiber volume fraction of 30%, 50% and 70%, compared to the linear assumption. The results of this study are in good agreement with the analytical and experimental results available in the literature

Residual stresses measurement in the butt joint welded metals using FSW and TIG methods

Fathollah Taheri-Behrooz,Mohammad R.M. Aliha,Mahmood Maroofi,Vahid Hadizadeh 국제구조공학회 2018 Steel and Composite Structures, An International J Vol.28 No.6

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a solid-state process, where the objects are joined together without reaching their melting point. It has been shown that this method is a suitable way to join dissimilar aluminium alloys. The current article employed hole drilling technique to measure the residual stress distribution experimentally in different zones of dissimilar aluminium alloys AA6061-T6 and AA7075-T6 Butt welded using FSW. Results are compared with those of similar AA6061-T6 plates joined using a conventional fusion welding method called tungsten inert gas (TIG). Also, the evolution of the residual stresses in the thickness direction was investigated, and it was found that the maximum residual stresses are below the yield strength of the material in the shoulder region. It was also revealed that the longitudinal residual stresses in the joint were much larger than the transverse residual stresses. Meanwhile, Vickers micro hardness measurements were performed in the cross-section of the samples. The largest hardness values were observed in the stir zone (SZ) adjacent to the advancing side whereas low hardness values were measured at the HAZ of both alloys and the SZ adjacent to the retreating side.

A new constitutive model to predict effective elastic properties of plain weave fabric composites

Amir H. Mazaheri,Fathollah Taheri-behrooz 국제구조공학회 2021 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.77 No.5

In this study, a new constitutive model has been developed to predict the elastic behavior of plain weave textile composites, using the finite element (FE) method. The geometric conditions and basic assumptions of this model are based on the basics of a continuum theory developed for the plane curved composites. In this model, the mechanical properties of the weave region and pure matrix region is calculated separately and then imported for the FE analysis. This new constitutive model is used to implement the mechanical properties of weave region in the representative volume element (RVE). The constitutive relations are implemented as user-material subroutine code (UMAT) in ABAQUS® FE software. The results of FE analysis have been compared with experimental results and other data available in the literature. These comparisons confirmed the capability of the presented model for the prediction of effective elastic properties of plain weave fabric composites.

Effect of the crude oil environment on the electrical conductivity of the epoxy nanocomposites

Seyed Morteza Razavi,Soroush Azhdari,Fathollah Taheri-Behrooz Techno-Press 2023 Advances in nano research Vol.15 No.4

This study is aimed to investigate the electrically conductive properties of epoxy nanocomposites exposed to an acidic environment under various mechanical loads. For simultaneous assessment of the acidic environment and mechanical load on the electrical conductivity of the samples, the samples with and without carbon nanotubes were exposed to the acidic environment under three different loading conditions for 20 days. Then, the aged samples' strength and flexural stiffness degradation under crude oil and bending stress were measured using a three-point flexural test. The aged samples in the acidic environment and under 80 percent of their intact ultimate strength revealed a 9% and 26% reduction of their electrical conductivity for samples with and without CNTs, respectively. The presence of nanoparticles declined flexural stiffness by about 16.39%. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the specimen were used to evaluate the dispersion quality of CNTs. The results of this study can be exploited in constructing conductive composite electrodes to be used in petroleum environments such as crude oil electrostatic tanks.