Reliability assessment of post-buckling compressive strength of laminated composite plates and stiffened panels under axial compression

A method for reliability assessment of the post-buckling compressive strength of laminated composite plates and stiffened panels under axial compression is presented in the paper. The prediction of the post-buckling compressive strength is performed by a progressive failure analysis which was developed based on a progressive stiffness degradation model and a nonlinear finite element analysis with a new explicit through-thickness integration scheme. A method coupled with the finite element analysis is proposed for reliability assessment where a finite difference method combined with an improved first-order reliability algorithm that omits the non-important random variables but retains sufficient accuracy was developed for reliability estimation. Two numerical examples are described demonstrating the capabilities of the method developed. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.