Bearing Strength Analysis of Hybrid Titanium Composite Laminates

This paper presents a finite element model used to predict the bearing strength of hybrid titanium composite fiber-metal laminates. The model is used to examine the effects of material parameters such as titanium content and edge-distance ratio on specific bearing strength. In addition, a three-dimensional progressive failure user material subroutine is implemented into the commercial finite element code ABAQUS to model stiffness degradation in the graphite-polyimide layers of the hybrid laminate. These results are used to optimize the fiber-metal laminate layup by determining to the ideal tradeoff between joint strength and structural weight.