Development of expert system for three-dimensional analysis of composites

There are, at present, too many design parameters for composite structures such as reinforcing fiber architecture, fiber orientation, and volume fraction, among others. Therefore, the material data base system, which can calculate three-dimensional mechanical properties of lamina and laminate using the classical stacking theory, has been developed. The advantage of this system is that it is able to calculate mechanical properties easily and visually by using graphical user interface. As an application of the developed system, a wastewater treatment tank made of GFRP under internal water pressure has been analyzed. The computational results show good agreement with the experimental ones. It is revealed that the proposed system is very useful for three-dimensional structural analysis of composite materials.