The coupling effects between the mechanical and electric properties of piezoelectric materials have drawn significant attention for their potential applications as sensors and actuators. In this investigation, two piezoelectric actuators are symmetrically surface bonded on a cross-ply composite laminate. Electric voltages with the same amplitude and opposite sign are applied to the two symmetri...

The use of functional repair components stored inside hollow reinforcing fibres is being considered as a self-repair system for future composite structures. The incorporation of a self-healing capability within a variety of materials, including fibre reinforced polymers (FRPs), has been investigated by a number of workers previously. This paper considers the placement of self-healing plies with...

In this paper we present a novel laminate parametrization technique for layered composite structures that can handle problems in which the ply angles are limited to a discrete set. In the proposed technique, the classical laminate stiffnesses are expressed as a linear combination of the discrete options and design-variable weights. An exact `1 penalty function is employed to drive the solution ...

During clinical practice, when performing prosthetic rehabilitation with single crowns, improper reproduction of the dental contour by the dental laboratory is a common occurrence. Therefore, the present study evaluated the fidelity of the reproduction of the buccal contour in an upper left canine performed by three Dental Prosthesis Technicians (DPT) using the indirect laminate veneer techniqu...

Laminate composites are widely used in automotive, aerospace, and increasingly in consumer industries, due to their reduced weight and superior structural properties. However, structural analysis of complex laminate structures remains challenging. 2D finite element methods based on plate/shell theories may be accurate and efficient, but they generally do not apply to the whole structure and req...

OBJECTIVES Based on a maxillary premolar restored with laminate veneer and using the 3-D finite element analysis (FEA) and μCT data, the aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of different types of buccal cusp reduction on the stress distribution in the porcelain laminate veneer and in the resin luting cement layer. METHODS Two 3-D FEA models (M) of a maxillary premolar were built fr...

Determination of the local interlaminar stress distribution in a laminate with a bolt-filled hole is helpful for optimal bolted joint design, due to the three-dimensional (3D) nature of the stress field near the bolt hole. A new interlaminar stress distribution phenomenon induced by the bolt-head and clamp-up load, which occurs in a filled-hole composite laminate, is investigated. In order to e...

An approximate method is presented to investigate Mgy the interlaminar stresses near the free edges of composite N laminate plates that are subjected to a combined NI~ thermo-mechanical loading. The method is based upon N~ admissible function representations of stresses which account Q!~) for the effects of both the global mismatches and the local ,~!k/ mismatches in two of the elastic properti...

This paper presents buckling studies made on skew plates using finite element. The effects of the skew angle, aspect ratio, length-to-thickness-ratio, fibre orientation angle, and numbers of layers in the laminate and laminate sequence on the critical buckling load factor (Kcr) of antisymmetric composite laminates have also been presented. The critical buckling load factor (Kcr) is found to inc...

The insect cuticle is a typical natural composite with excellent strength, stiffness, and fracture toughness. Scanning electron microscope observation of the microstructure of Hydrophilidae (an insect) cuticle showed several unique plies and structural characteristics, which may provide available information to the design of advanced composites. The microstructure found in the vicinity of pore ...