Proceeding of ICRACEM 2020

1st Online International Conference on Recent Advances in Computational and Experimental Mechanics
September 4-6, 2020, IIT Kharagpur, Paper ID: SM-20-0XX

Experimental Stress and Free Vibration Study of WOVEN Fiber

Laminated Composite Beam
Satyajit Sahu and Kallol Khan
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, Durgapur, India

ABSTRACT

In this paper, the detailed analysis has carried out on assuming that a plain weave lamina is
equivalent to a cross-ply unidirectional lamina of the same density. The simulation is based on
the equivalent mechanical properties of cross-ply laminate as it is treated to behave likely a
plain weave laminate. The experimental stress and free vibration analysis of glass, aramid, and
basalt woven fiber-reinforced composite beam have been carried out for clamped-clamped
boundary conditions. The experimentation is based on the actual mechanical properties of the
plain weave laminate. Stress and free vibration results are compared which are found out from
experimentation and simulation. Unlike the stress analysis, it is found that the behaviour of
any composite beam for free vibration non-dimensional frequency depends on the beam
thickness, dimensional frequency, and some material properties. Determination of the first
mode frequency of the composite beam has found out as it is very important to know about the
structural stability of the beam.

Keywords: Woven fiber, free vibration, stress, beam.

1. INTRODUCTION
In today’s world, composite materials are becoming an essential part as they offer advantages
like low weight, high specific strength, corrosion resistance, and high fatigue strength. The use
of woven fabric composites is increasing as advanced structural materials. The strength of any
laminated composite beam or plate strongly depends upon the no of layers, orientation, and
material properties of the individual laminae.

In this research work, hand lay-up technique is used to manufacture the beam for
experimentation. Rajpurohit [1] mentioned different type of composite manufacturing process
that was used until now in the world of the composite. Aly et al. [2] fabricated bidirectional
glass fiber beams by using the hand-lay-up process of different orientation. For unidirectional
laminated composite although the rule of mixture does not perfectly fit the desired output of
getting different mechanical properties along in transverse and in-plane directions, but the
error associated with getting the properties from Halpen-Tsai equation and the rule of mixture
is not significant. Hence, the rule of mixture is implemented. But unlike unidirectional lamina,

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur 1|Page

Composite Material

the woven type lamina got some special attention because of its complex design which makes
it less straightforward to predict the mechanical properties.

Akkerman [3] derived the laminate mechanics for balanced woven fabrics and it's micro-
mechanical behavior. Woven laminated composite possesses higher stiffness value in both the
longitudinal and primary transverse axis directions as more material available to resist any
kind of volumetric changes in a single ply. A plain weave lamina can be treated as an
orthotropic material with nine independent elastic engineering constants as E1, E2, E3, 𝜈 12, 𝜈13 ,
𝜈 23, G12, G13, and G23.
Where, E1 = stiffness in longitudinal (L or 1) direction, E2 = stiffness in primary transverse (T
or 2) direction, E3 = stiffness in secondary transverse (T/ or 3) direction, 𝜈 12 = poission's ratio
in L-T plane, 𝜈13 = poission's ratio in L-T/ plane, 𝜈 23 = poission's ratio in T-T/ plane, G12, G13,
and G23 are shear modulus in L-T, L-T/ and tT-T/ plane.
The unidirectional lamina inculcates the property of transverse isotropy that is E2 = E3 and the
mechanical properties found out by using the rule of mixture, while for woven fabric lamina
E1=E2 as per the symmetric warp and fill yarn counts and the mechanical properties found out
by using UTM. Krishnamoorthy and Sasikumar [4] presented the analysis and characterization
of the tensile property of the composite specimens using ANSYS software. Naik and
Shembekar [5] studied the elastic behaviour of woven fabric composites (lamina analysis).

2. MATHEMATICAL MODELLING
The analysis of micro-mechanics based on the unit cell can be performed using the
equivalence compliance matrix of a cross-ply laminate with a woven fabric laminate. On the
other hand, the stress-induced and free vibration frequency in the beam with clamped-clamped
boundary condition modelled in ANSYS software on taking the equivalent properties from the
rule of the mixture is compared with experimentally found out stiffness value used to calculate
the same results in the beam using LabVIEW software.

The cross-ply approximation of woven laminated composite that to be used in the simulation
can be found out by the rule of the mixture using the following relations,

𝑊𝑓 𝑊𝑐 −𝑊𝑓
(( )+( ))
𝜌𝑓 𝜌𝑚
𝑉𝑣 = 1 − 𝑊𝑐 (1)
𝜌𝑐

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur 2|Page

 Proceeding of ICRACEM 2020
1st Online International Conference on Recent Advances in Computational and Experimental Mechanics
September 4-6, 2020, IIT Kharagpur, Paper ID: ICRACEM/2020/xxxx

𝜌𝑐 = 𝜌𝑓 𝑉𝑓 + 𝜌𝑚 𝑉𝑚 (2)

𝐸1 = 𝐸𝑓 𝑉𝑓 + 𝐸𝑚 (1 − 𝑉𝑓 ) (3)
−1
𝑉
𝐸2 = 𝐸3 = [𝐸𝑓 + (1 − 𝑉𝑓 )/𝐸𝑚 ] (4)
𝑓

𝜈12 = 𝜈13 = 𝜈𝑓 𝑉𝑓 + 𝜈𝑚 (1 − 𝑉𝑓) (5)

−1
𝑉𝑓
𝐺12 = 𝐺13 = [𝐺 + (1 − 𝑉𝑓 )/𝐺𝑚 ] (6)
𝑓

𝜈12 𝜈21
𝐸1
= 𝐸2
(7)

𝐸
𝐺23 = 2(1−𝜈2 (8)
23 )

𝑣 𝐸
1+𝜈𝑚 − 12 𝑚
𝐸1
𝜈23 = 𝜈12 [ 𝜈 𝜈 𝐸 ] (9)
1−𝜈𝑚 2 + 𝑚 12 𝑚
𝐸1

where 𝑉𝑣 =void fraction of composite specimen, 𝑊𝑓 and 𝑊𝑐 are the weight of the fiber and
composite respectively, 𝜌𝑐 , 𝜌𝑓 and 𝜌𝑚 are the density of composite specimen, fiber and
matrix material respectively, 𝐸𝑚 =Stiffness of the matrix material, 𝐸𝑓 =Stiffness of fiber used,
𝑉𝑚 =Volume fraction of matrix material, 𝑉𝑓 =Volume fraction of reinforcement fiber,
𝜈𝑚 =Poisson's ratio of matrix used and 𝜈𝑓 = Poisson's ratio of fiber. And lastly, the volume
fraction is defined as the weight of the fiber or epoxy to the total weight of the composite
specimen and 𝑉𝑚 =1-𝑉𝑓 -𝑉𝑣 .

And, now for woven laminated composite, we need to calculate the number of warp yarns and
fill yarns which depends upon the method of manufacturing and also varies from supplier to
supplier for a different type of plain weave fabric models and then the prediction of
mechanical properties can be depicted by the least known relations performed by Jweeg et. al.
[6] experimental and theoretical studies of mechanical properties for reinforcement fiber types
of composite materials. The relations are as follows

𝐸1𝑤 = 𝑝𝐸1 + (1 − 𝑘)𝐸2 (10)

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur 3|Page
Composite Material

𝐸2𝑤 = (1 − 𝑝)𝐸1 + 𝑘𝐸2 (11)

𝐺12𝑤 = 𝐺12 (12)

where 𝑝= (n1+n2)/2, n1, and n2 are the no of warp and fill yarn count per meter respectively,
𝐸1𝑤 =Stiffness of woven composite in the longitudinal direction, 𝐸2𝑤 =Stiffness of woven
composite in the transverse direction and 𝐺12𝑤 =in-plane shear modulus of the woven
composite.

Non-dimensional stress and strain values also can be found out from the stress analysis by the
following relation

𝜌
𝜛 = 𝜔1 ∗ 𝐿2 √𝐸 2
(13)
2 ∗ℎ

ℎ2
𝜎𝑛𝑑𝑠 = 𝜎𝑥 ∗ 𝑏 ∗ Ρ (14)
𝑧 ∗𝐿

where 𝜛= non-dimensional frequency of the composite beam, 𝜔1= dimensional frequency of

the composite beam, 𝜎𝑛𝑑𝑠 = non-dimensional stress value, 𝜎𝑥 = stress value in Pascal (N/m2),
𝑏=beam width, ℎ= beam thickness, Ρ𝑧 = load acting per length (N/m) and 𝐿= Length of the
beam which was taken 400mm in the experimentation as well as in simulation.

Table 1. Mechanical propeties of fiber and matrix materials provided by the supplier

Serial Matrix / Fiber Youngs's modulus Shear modulus Poisson's ratio Density (𝜌) in
no. in GPa in GPa g/cm3
Epoxy resin
1 (Lapox-12+K-6 4.1 1.576 0.3 1.14309
hardener)
2 Kevlar fiber 124 45.588 0.36 1.4

3 Glass fiber 85 34.416 0.2 2.5

4 Basalt fiber 36.9125 14.1971 0.28 2.6

Different mechanical properties of materials supplied by the manufacturer are listed below
which are to be used in the rule of the mixture to get some properties of unidirectional fiber
laminated composite specimens.
The mechanical properties of different unidirectional fiber-reinforced composite specimens
properties found using Eqs. 2-9 are listed below.
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur 4|Page
 Proceeding of ICRACEM 2020
1st Online International Conference on Recent Advances in Computational and Experimental Mechanics
September 4-6, 2020, IIT Kharagpur, Paper ID: ICRACEM/2020/xxxx

Table 2. Mechanical properties of different unidirectional laminated composite from the rule of mixture

Sl. Type of 𝐸1 in GPa 𝐸2 = 𝐺12 = 𝐺23 in 𝜈12 Density

no laminated 𝐸3 in 𝐺13 in GPa GPa = 𝜈13 𝜈23 𝑉𝑓 (𝜌) in
composite GPa Kg/m3
1 Kevlar 12.671 5.332 2.019 4.8635 0.32 0.45 0.34 1229.3

2 Glass 13.604 7.7476 3.024 6.3933 0.28 0.39 0.193 1404

3 Basalt 12.3458 5.2793 2.029 4.8873 0.37 0.45 0.251 1509.2

Again, from Eqs. 10-12 we can predict the mechanical properties of woven laminated
composites by considering no. of warp and fill count per meter supplied by the manufacturer
in plain weave laminae.

Table 3. Mechanical properties of different woven laminated composites

Sl. Type of woven 𝑛1 = 𝑛2 in 𝐸1 in GPa 𝐸2 in 𝐸1𝑤 =𝐸2𝑤 in GPa 𝐺12𝑤 = 𝐺12 in

no composites thousands GPa GPa

1 Kevlar 1 12.671 5.332 9.0015 2.019

2 Glass 1.2 13.604 7.7476 10.6758 3.024
3 Basalt 0.5 12.3458 5.2793 8.81255 2.029

Table 3 shows some of the predicted mechanical properties of different plain weave laminated
composite materials with the help of stiffness of warp and fill yarns of the lamina.

As per the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) D3039 standard-sized sample
of dimensions 250mm*25mm*2.5mm carried out of different woven laminated composite and
tested in INSTRON UTM machine. From INSTRON universal testing machine tensile test the
results are performed below. Table 4 shows stiffness in the longitudinal and primary
transverse direction of different woven fiber laminated composites found from the experiment,
it reflects the stiffness obtained from UTM is not the same as the predicted mechanical
properties of different plain weave laminated composite as given in table 3. This is due to the
elliptical or circular curvature and shapes acquired by the fibers during the weaving operation.

The behavior of the unidirectional lamina and plain weave laminas are completely different
because of the method of manufacturing as well as the no of yarns associated in different
directions.
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur 5|Page
Composite Material

Table 4. Mechanical properties of different woven composites from the experiment

Serial no. Type of woven laminated composite 𝐸1𝑤 =𝐸2𝑤 in GPa

1 Kevlar 14.67137
2 Glass 11.97306
3 Basalt 12.64202

3. ANALYTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

In this study, we focus on stress and free vibration study. Free vibration analysis plays a vital
role in any kind of structural applications to have the stability of the structure. Free vibration,
here more specifically first mode of vibration or frequency of the first mode which can be
found out experimentally by giving an impulse onto beam with the help of a small impact
hammer and the whole setup would be subjected to a DAQ (Data Acquisition System). But,
here firstly free vibration analysis from ANSYS is done which is approximate analysis
afterward from experimental LabVIEW software. In Figs. 1 and 2 the experimental setup for
present analysis has been shown. To determine the natural frequency for the cantilever beam
in LabVIEW software and compared the result from ANSYS Mevada and Patel [7] nicely
conucted the experiment .

Figure 1. Data Acquisition System Figure 2. Experimental setup

interface

In Fig. 3 the time history and frequency response of the kevlar fibered laminated composite
beam (4 layers) has been presented. From the frequency response curve, it is inferred that the
frequency of fundamental mode vibration is 23 rad/s. In Fig. 4 the mode shape for the
fundamental mode of vibration has been shown for the same beam. The frequency is 26.87
rad/s. The non-dimensional stress at the top and bottom fiber is found to be -2.07 and 2.07
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur 6|Page
 Proceeding of ICRACEM 2020
1st Online International Conference on Recent Advances in Computational and Experimental Mechanics
September 4-6, 2020, IIT Kharagpur, Paper ID: ICRACEM/2020/xxxx

from experimentation. Those values are found to be -1.85 and 2.11 respectively from the
simulation.

Figure 3. Time history & Frequency Figure 4. Mode shape from ANSYS
response obtained from LabVIEW

In ANSYS we can get the first mode frequency of the composite beam by choosing the
element as shell type 4 node 181, giving material properties, density, and clamped-clamped
boundary conditions and analysis is the modal type.

Table 5. Free vibration analysis result of different beams from simulation

Sl. Type of No of Density of Beam cross- E2 of the Frequency of Non-

no. woven plies beam section beam in the beam dimensional
composite (Kg/m3) b*h (mm2) GPa frequency

1 Kevlar 4 1517.46 54*1.70 12.67 26.87 0.86

2 Kevlar 8 1537.81 54*3.14 12.67 49.44 0.87
3 Kevlar 12 1473.48 54*4.78 12.67 76.44 0.86
4 Basalt 4 1820.69 55*2.53 12.34 36.11 0.86

5 Basalt 8 1946.54 54*2.64 12.34 36.49 0.87

6 Basalt 12 1932.06 54*4.06 12.34 56.33 0.87
7 Glass 4 1946.28 53*1.28 11.97 19.45 0.90
8 Glass 8 1717.19 54*2.72 11.97 43.95 0.90
9 Glass 12 1898.13 54*3.47 11.97 53.26 0.90

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur 7|Page

Composite Material

Table 6. Free vibration analysis result of different beams from experiment

Sl. Type of No of Density of Beam cross- E2 of the Frequency of Non-

no. woven plies beam section beam in the beam dimensional
composite (Kg/m3) b*h (mm2) GPa frequency

1 Kevlar 4 1517.46 54*1.70 14.67 23 0.69

2 Kevlar 8 1537.81 54*3.14 14.67 52 0.85
3 Kevlar 12 1473.48 54*4.78 14.67 87 0.92
4 Basalt 4 1820.69 55*2.53 12.64 30 0.71
5 Basalt 8 1946.54 54*2.64 12.64 36 0.85
6 Basalt 12 1932.06 54*4.06 12.64 61 0.93
7 Glass 4 1946.28 53*1.28 11.97 18 0.90
8 Glass 8 1717.19 54*2.72 11.97 29 0.64
9 Glass 12 1898.13 54*3.47 11.97 52 0.95

Table 5 & 6 shows the result of the first mode of frequency value of different composite beam
carried out from simulation and experimentation. The non-dimensional frequency values are
found out using the formula in Eq. 13.

Stress analysis plays a vital role while dealing with any structural application problems like
beams, trusses, machine components, pressure vessels, automobile frames, etc subjected to
any kind of loads. Now a day's composites materials are used widely in most of the fields
because of their excellent hygrothermal behavior and mechanical properties.

Here, if the woven fiber laminated composite contains four plain weave laminae in
experimentation then the simulation in ANSYS will be modeled based on [00/900]4 ply
orientation which is an eight-ply laminate. Here, the result will be performed on taking
clamped-clamped boundary conditions and beam subjected to point load at the mid-span.
Whereas, the actual plain weave laminated composite beam's stress analysis is done using
LabVIEW software to have an experimental result.

Firstly, We have gone through the simulation and afterward the experimentation. In ANSYS
the beam can be modeled by taking the Shell 4 node 181 element type with all DOF=0 at the
supports and applying load at the midspan. The analysis here is the static type.

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur 8|Page

 Proceeding of ICRACEM 2020
1st Online International Conference on Recent Advances in Computational and Experimental Mechanics
September 4-6, 2020, IIT Kharagpur, Paper ID: ICRACEM/2020/xxxx

Figure 5. The deformed contour from ANSYS 17.1 model simulation

Fig. 5 shows the deformed contour along with the strain values of the same above-mentioned
beam from simulation when subjected to a central load of 0.2 Kg.

Table 7. Stress and strain values of different beams with different loads from ANSYS simulation

Sl. Type of No of load Beam cross- Top fiber Top fiber Bottom Bottom
no. woven plies (Kgs) section strain* E-6 stress * E6 fiber fiber stress
composite b*h (mm2) (σnds) strain* E-6 * E6 (σnds)
1 Kevlar 4 0.2 54*1.70 -364.25 -1.85 402.78 2.11
2 Kevlar 8 1 54*3.14 -545.05 -9.39 571.07 2.99
3 Kevlar 12 1 54*4.78 -247.70 -9.85 256.15 1.34
4 Basalt 4 0.5 55*2.53 -414.48 -4.70 457.49 2.36
5 Basalt 8 1 54*2.64 -792.89 -0.94 833.00 4.30
6 Basalt 12 1 54*4.06 -363.07 -10.23 375.24 1.93
7 Glass 4 0.1 53*1.28 -280.4 -0.84 300.01 2.30
8 Glass 8 1 54*2.72 -621.53 -8.57 642.89 4.92
9 Glass 12 1 54*3.47 -399.01 -8.93 408.10 3.12

Table 7 resembles different beams top and bottom fiber non-dimensional stress as well as
strain values for different loading magnitude with the same clamped-clamped boundary
conditions. The main focus is on how much closer is the analytical value to the experimentally
found out value to get a reasonable conclusion.

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur 9|Page

Composite Material

As mentioned earlier LabVIEW result will be discussed later in the tabular form. In the
experimental setup composite beam is manufactured by a hand molding process, and the strain
gauge used is off lead-based with gage factor 1.9, and gauge resistance is 350 Ω.

Table 8. Stress and strain values of different beams with different loads from LabVIEW experimental setup

Sl. Type of No load Beam cross- Top fiber Top fiber Bottom Bottom
no. woven of (Kgs) section strain* stress * E6 fiber fiber
composite plies b*h (mm2) E-6 (σnds) strain* E- stress * E6
6 (σnds)
1 Kevlar 4 0.2 54*1.70 -358.5 -2.07 359.63 2.07
2 Kevlar 8 1 54*3.14 -336.16 -6.58 346.37 6.78
3 Kevlar 12 1 54*4.78 -151.99 -6.87 166.26 7.52
4 Basalt 4 0.5 55*2.53 -564.62 -6.30 567.31 6.33
5 Basalt 8 1 54*2.64 -486.23 -5.64 495.41 5.75
6 Basalt 12 1 54*4.06 -112.63 -3.17 127.98 3.60
7 Glass 4 0.1 53*1.28 -216.84 -0.56 219.67 0.57
8 Glass 8 1 54*2.72 -723.97 -8.67 753.05 9.02
9 Glass 12 1 54*3.47 -144.51 -2.81 147.37 2.86

Table 8 presents the non-dimensional stress value using Eq. 12 and strain value for the
different woven composite beam with the help of LabVIEW software.
Now, the comparison of stress analysis and free vibration study is to be done by taking the
simulation results as the reference values and the LabVIEW results as experimental values.

4. CONCLUSIONS
In this present study, the different beams of woven fiber laminated composite are analysed,
and stress, strain and free vibration study is done for different composite beams. From the
above analysis based on an experimental model, the study clarifies that we can't predict the
behavior of a plain weave laminated composite beam with clamped-clamped boundary
conditions by taking an equivalent two cross-ply laminated composite whether it may be the
case of stress analysis or the case of the free vibration study. The error associated with this
analysis is because of the curvature and shape obtained by the fiber in the manufacturing of
plain-weave fabric. And out of all the fibers, the stiffness of kevlar woven fiber laminated
composite beam shows maximum stiffness followed by basalt ang glass fiber.

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur 10 | P a g e

 Proceeding of ICRACEM 2020
1st Online International Conference on Recent Advances in Computational and Experimental Mechanics
September 4-6, 2020, IIT Kharagpur, Paper ID: ICRACEM/2020/xxxx

REFERENCES
1. A. Rajpurohit, "Fiber Reinforced Composites", Advances in Manufacturing Techniques," November 2012.
2. M.F. Aly, I.G.M. Goda, and G.A. Hassan, "Experimental Investigation of the Dynamic Characteristics of
Laminated Composite Beams”, International Journal of Mechanical & Mechatronics 10, 2010.
3. R. Akkerman, "Laminate mechanics for balance woven fabrics", Composites 37, pp. 108-116, 2006.
4. K. Krishnamoorthy and T. Sasikumar, “Analysis and characterization of tensile property of the composite
specimen using ANSYS”, International Journal of Applied Engineering Research 11, pp. 380-384, 2016.
5. N. K. Naik and P. S. Shembekar, “Elastic behavior of woven fabric composites: I-Lamina Analysis”,
Journal of Composite Materials 26, pp. 2196-2225, 1992.
6. M. J. Jweeg, A. S. Hammood and M. Al-Waily, " Experimental and Theoretical Studies of Mechanical
Properties for Reinforcement Fiber Types of Composite Materials", 12, pp. 04, 2015.
7. H. Mevada and D. Patel, "Experimental determination of structural damping of different", Procedia
Engineering 144, pp.110-115, 2016.

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur 11 | P a g e