Interlaminar stress analysis of magneto-electro-elastic composite layered laminates using a stress function based iterative approach

In this paper, we propose a stress function based iterative approach for predicting the interlaminar stresses in magneto-electro-elastic (MEE) composite layered laminates induced by both mechanical and piezomagnetic excitations. The proposed iterative methodology adopts the Lekhnitskii stress functions as stress fields which satisfy the pointwise equilibrium condition under plane strain state and the stress trial functions are separated into the in-plane stress function and out-of-plane stress function. The iteration initiates from an assumption of the out-of-plane stress function as a combination of harmonic functions. By taking the principle of complementary virtual work, the governing equations are derived and the in-plane stress function can be obtained by solving a general eigenproblem. The obtained in-plane stress function is further used as the known function and the out-of-plane stress function is solved in the next iteration. Through the iterations, the interlaminar stress distributions are calculated from the iterative process and the accuracy is improved. The results are validated by the 3-D FEM results under the mechanical load and the convergence study is also conducted. The proposed approach is accurate and efficient in predicting the interlaminar stresses of MEE composite layered laminates.