Thermo-viscoelastic analysis of composite materials

The thermo-viscoelastic boundary value problem for anisotropic materials is formulated and a numerical procedure is developed for the efficient analysis of stress and deformation histories in composites. The procedure is based on the finite element method and therefore it is applicable to composite laminates containing geometric discontinuities and complicated boundary conditions. Using the present formulation, the time-dependent stress and strain distributions in both notched and unnotched graphite/epoxy composites have been obtained. The effect of temperature and ply orientation on the creep and relaxation response is also studied.