The laminate is subjected to a 0.1��N/mm2 transversely distributed surface load and analyzed in terms of its bending behavior separately under two boundary conditions, simply supported (u, v, and w = 0) and clamped (u, v, w, ��x, and ��y = 0), at all edges. Also, it is discretized into 16 �� 16 square elements under numerous Axitinib cancer aspect ratios. The results in terms of central displacement are shown in Figure 2.Figure 2Central deflection of perfectly bonded laminate of numerous aspect ratios with simply supported and clamped boundary conditions.It is shown generally that the central deflections of simply supported two-layer cross-ply laminates are greater than those of clamped since the latters are constrained with a greater extent at the edges.

Under the same intensity of loading and support condition, the laminate with a higher aspect ratio experiences less central deflection since it is stiffer due to close proximity of increased portion of laminate to constrained edges. It is obvious and verified that the central deflections computed from the present model when described as fully bonded match perfectly those of laminate element without interface element.3.2. Localized Interfacial Imperfection on Diagonal AxisDeparting from good agreements with the results given by the conventional FE for perfectly bonded laminates, we shall proceed, employing the current technique, to look at the bending performance of the laminate when interface is degenerated, in a variety of conditions. A composite laminate similar to that utilized in the verification (Section 3.

1) will be next used to serve our purpose. All the loading and boundary conditions remain the same, except that the planar dimensions of the laminate are now fixed to 100mm �� 100mm. Furthermore, the perturbation in the interfacial condition is focused on a quarter of the laminate, in current study, the lowest right quarter (Figure 3(a)), due to boundary condition symmetry. Besides, the localized defects simulated with different sizes and extents of imperfection are placed along the diagonal of the considered quarter plate (Figure 3(b)). The center of the localized defect, which depends on its size, may lie at the center or the edge of one of the discretized elements. Insofar as the results are concerned, we shall investigate the relative loss in structural response, when measured against its perfect state, to gain comparatively the effect of interfacial degeneration.

Figure 3(a) Quarter of plate, the interface of which is considered for degeneration, in the analysis. (b) Localized degeneration AV-951 along the diagonal of the considered region.We define the distance of localized interfacial degeneration (r) as that determined from the center of plate to center of degeneration as shown in Figure 3(b). In addition, the extent of degeneration in laminate is modeled through the variation in the degeneration ratio (R) in the computation of the stiffness matrix of interface (9).