Displacement and stress analysis of laminated composite plates using an eight-node quasi-conforming solid-shell element

This paper presents the efficient modeling and analysis of laminated composite plates using an eightnode quasi-conforming solid-shell element, named as QCSS8. The present element QCSS8 is not only lockingfree, but highly computational efficiency as it possesses the explicit element stiffness matrix. All the six components of stresses can be evaluated directly by QCSS8 in terms of the 3-D constitutive equations and the appropriately assumed element strain field. Several typical numerical examples of laminated plates are solved to validate QCSS8, and the resulting values are compared with analytical solutions and the numerical results of solid/solidshell elements of commercial codes computed by the present authors in which fine meshes were used. The numerical results show that QCSS8 can give accurate displacements and stresses of laminated composite plates even with coarse meshes. Furthermore, QCSS8 yields also accurate transverse normal strain which is very important for the evaluation of interlaminar stresses in laminated plates. Since each lamina of laminated composite plates can be modeled naturally by one or a few layers of solidshell elements and a large aspect ratio of element edge to thickness is allowed in solid-shell elements, the present solid-shell element QCSS8 is extremely appropriate for the modeling of laminated composite plates.