Some features of design of tapered composite elements

Analysis of design methods for composite beams with curvilinear fiber trajectories is considered in this paper. The novelty of this approach is determined by the fact that traditional composite materials are typically formed using prepregs with rectilinear fibers only. The applications of the results are associated with designing shaped members with a composite structure by using of biomechanical principles [1,2]. One of the problems is evaluation of the effect of fiber misorientation on the stiffness and load carry capacity of a shaped composite element with curvilinear fiber trajectories. An equistrong beam with a constant cross-section area is considered as an example, and it can be produced by forming of a unidirectional fiber bunch impregnated by a polymer matrix. Methods for evaluating the effective elastic modulus for structures with curvilinear fiber trajectories are validated. The misorientation angle range (up to 5 degrees), when a material with required accuracy can be considered as homogeneous, is determined, fiber misorientation being neglected. It is shown that, for beams with a fairly small height-to-width ratio, it is possible to consider only 2D misorientation.