Influence of different structural parameters on the mechanical properties of composite thin-walled structure

A complex structure and/or joint may increase the strength of composite thin-walled structure, but may also increase the structural mass and complexity. Thus a good understanding of the influence of different structures and joints on the mechanical properties is necessary for the structural optimisations. The basic mechanical parameters of C/SiC composite laminate were obtained from the 'cell model' based on the microscopic observations and were then used to establish the simplified macroscopic structural Finite Element (FE) models. Two types of typical thin-walled composite structures, i.e. composite plate and composite stiffened plate, and two types of typical thin-walled composite joint structures, i.e. rivets and bolts, were studied in this paper. For each type, the FE models with different key parameters were established and thus gave the relations between the mechanical properties and the parametric variables. The key parameters affecting the mechanical property and their influences on the mechanical property have been revealed, a surrogate model taking these key parameters into account is being established using response surface method for the structural optimizations.