A FEM Study on Thermal Stress in Laminated Composite

The 3-D elasto-plastic finite element method (FEM) was used to analyze the thermal stress in the laminated composite (SiC/6061Al) under the condition of a temperature cycling of 200 0C-30 0C- 200 0C-30 0C. The results from the FEM analysis showed that the hysteretic peak value of the von Mises equivalent stress in the substrate 6061Al was increased significantly as the temperature loading cycles processed on but it was nearly the same after the first cycle in the interface layer SiC of the laminated composite. The elastic strain in the substrate 6061Al varied within the range of -0.15% to 0.15% and the maximum plastic deformation was equal to about 0.26 %. The results also showed that the maximum normal stress Sx was increased from 32.8 MPa to 87.9 MPa after ten cycles and the work-hardening of the substrate 6061Al occurred during the stress and strain hysteresis loop.