Composite plates with randomly distributed weak bonding: Heterogeneity and virtual testing.

This paper proposed a virtual testing method combining finite element procedure with heterogeneity weak bonding model to analyze the macroscopic responses of composite plates. Results show that weak bonding can induce out-of-plane displacement fluctuation when plates subjected to tension or shearing loads. However, it is less sensitive to transverse load. Further, much more distorted displacement map means more serious weak bonding interface. The fluctuated displacements can be used to measure and evaluate weak bonding under some specified loading modes. Since the computational framework considers the heterogeneity weak bonding, the statistical characteristics of results can be obtained by multiple computations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]