Mechanics of Composite Materials: Lecture 7- Energy Methods

#composites #mechanicsofcompositematerials #optimization

In this lecture we derive the equilibrium equations for a composite plate using an alternate approach, using energy methods. As it was shown in previous lectures solving for the deflections can be quite challenging due to the complex nature of the partial differential equations. We use energy methods to approximate solutions to the deflections. The methods presented here form the fundamentals of finite elements.