Edge effect in a laminated composite with longitudinally compressed laminas

The paper is concerned with the determination of edge effect zone in a laminated composite with laminas subject to longitudinal compression. The dependence of the maximum decay length on the ratio between the period of external loading and the structure parameter is studied. The load period depends on the number of unloaded laminas. The decay of the edge effect is analyzed by numerically solving a boundary-value problem of elasticity for piecewise-homogeneous materials and using a quantitative decay criterion for the near-edge normal stresses __________ Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika, Vol. 42, No. 8, pp. 89–96, August 2006.