Overall and Local Effects in Laminated Elastic Composite Under Nonlinear Strains

Abstract

It is known [1-4] that composite materials can possess properties different from the properties of their constitutive elements.There are few examples demonstrating significant (not quantitatively, but qualitatively too) change of properties. This article presents new effects of such kind. It is shown that laminated composite material made of linear elastic layers demonstrates nonlinear "overall" material properties when subjected to nonlinear deformations. This effect can be described as "the transformation of geometrical nonlinearity in material nonlinearity" in a laminated composite. Also, it is found that the local stresses in layers can be disproportionate to the elastic constants of layers under nonlinear deformations in opposition to the linear case.