This paper gives a historical review of the theories that have been developed for the analysis of multilayered structures. Attention has been restricted to the so-called Zig-Zag theories, which describe a piecewise continuous displacement field in the plate thickness direction and fulfill interlaminar continuity of transverse stresses at each layer interface. Basically, plate and shell geometries are addressed, even though beams are also considered in some cases. Models in which the number of displacement variables is kept independent of the number of constitutive layers are discussed to the greatest extent. Attention has been restricted to those plate and shell theories which are based on the so-called method of hypotheses or axiomatic approach in which assumptions are introduced for displacements and/or transverse stresses. Mostly, the work published in the English language is reviewed. However, an account of a few articles originally written in Russian is also given. The historical review conducted has led to the following main conclusions. 1! Lekhnitskii ~1935! was the first to propose a Zig-Zag theory, which was obtained by solving an elasticity problem involving a layered beam. 2! Two other different and independent Zig-Zag theories have been singled out. One was developed by Ambartsumian ~1958!, who extended the well-known Reissner-Mindlin theory to layered, anisotropic plates and shells; the other approach was introduced by Reissner ~1984!, who proposed a variational theorem that permits both displacements and transverse stress assumptions. 3 ! On the basis of historical considerations, which are detailed in the paper, it is proposed to refer to these three theories by using the following three names: Lekhnitskii Multilayered Theory, ~LMT!, Ambartsumian Multilayered Theory ~AMT!, and Reissner Multilayered Theory ~RMT!. As far as subsequent contributions to these three theories are concerned, it can be remarked that: 4! LMT although very promising, has almost been ignored in the open literature. 5! Dozens of papers have instead been presented which consist of direct applications or particular cases of the original AMT. The contents of the original works have very often been ignored, not recognized, or not mentioned in the large number of articles that were published in journals written in the English language. Such historical unfairness is detailed in Section 3.2. 6! RMT seems to be the most natural and powerful method to analyze multilayered structures. Compared to other theories, the RMT approach has allowed from the beginning development of models which retain the fundamental effect related to transverse normal stresses and strains. This review article cites 138 references. @DOI: 10.1115/1.1557614#

Historical review of Zig-Zag theories for multilayered plates and shells

This work is a sequel of a previous author’s article: “Theories and Finite Elements for Multilayered. Anisotropic, Composite Plates and Shell”, Archive of Computational Methods in Engineering Vol 9, no 2, 2002; in which a literature overview of available modelings for layered flat and curved structures was given. The two following topics, which were not addressed in the previous work, are detailed in this review: 1. derivation of governing equations and finite element matrices for some of the most relevant plate/shell theories; 2. to present an extensive numerical evaluations of available results, along with assessment and benchmarking. The article content has been divided into four parts. An introduction to this review content is given in Part I. A unified description of several modelings based on displacements and transverse stress assumptions ins given in Part II. The order of the expansion in the thickness directions has been taken as a free parameter. Two-dimensional modelings which include Zig-Zag effects, Interlaminar Continuity as well as Layer-Wise (LW), and Equivalent Single Layer (ESL) description have been addressed. Part III quotes governing equations and FE matrices which have been written in a unified manner by making an extensive use of arrays notations. Governing differential equations of double curved shells and finite element matrices of multilayered plates are considered. Principle of Virtual Displacement (PVD) and Reissner’s Mixed Variational Theorem (RMVT), have been employed as statements to drive variationally consistent conditions, e.g.C
 0
 -Requirements, on the assumed displacements and stransverse stress fields. The number of the nodes in the element has been taken as a free parameter. As a results both differential governing equations and finite element matrices have been written in terms of a few 3×3 fundamental nuclei which have 9 only terms each. A vast and detailed numerical investigation has been given in Part IV. Performances of available theories and finite elements have been compared by building about 40 tables and 16 figures. More than fifty available theories and finite elements have been compared to those developed in the framework of the unified notation discussed in Parts II and III. Closed form solutions and and finite element results related to bending and vibration of plates and shells have been addressed. Zig-zag effects and interlaminar continuity have been evaluated for a number of problems. Different possibilities to get transverse normal stresses have been compared. LW results have been systematically compared to ESL ones. Detailed evaluations of transverse normal stress effects are given. Exhaustive assessment has been conducted in the Tables 28–39 which compare more than 40 models to evaluate local and global response of layered structures. A final Meyer-Piening problem is used to asses two-dimensional modelings vs local effects description.

Theories and Finite Elements for Multilayered Plates and Shells:A Unified compact formulation with numerical assessment and benchmarking

This work is an overview of available theories and finite elements that have been developed for multilayered, anisotropic, composite plate and shell structures. Although a comprehensive description of several techniques and approaches is given, most of this paper has been devoted to the so called axiomatic theories and related finite element implementations. Most of the theories and finite elements that have been proposed over the last thirty years are in fact based on these types of approaches. The paper has been divided into three parts. Part I, has been devoted to the description of possible approaches to plate and shell structures: 3D approaches, continuum based methods, axiomatic and asymptotic two-dimensional theories, classical and mixed formulations, equivalent single layer and layer wise variable descriptions are considered (the number of the unknown variables is considered to be independent of the number of the constitutive layers in the equivalent single layer case). Complicating effects that have been introduced by anisotropic behavior and layered constructions, such as high transverse deformability, zig-zag effects and interlaminar continuity, have been discussed and summarized by the acronimC
 -Requirements. Two-dimensional theories have been dealt with in Part II. Contributions based on axiomatic, asymtotic and continuum based approaches have been overviewed. Classical theories and their refinements are first considered. Both case of equivalent single-layer and layer-wise variables descriptions are discussed. The so-called zig-zag theories are then discussed. A complete and detailed overview has been conducted for this type of theory which relies on an approach that is entirely originated and devoted to layered constructions. Formulas and contributions related to the three possible zig-zag approaches, i.e. Lekhnitskii-Ren, Ambartsumian-Whitney-Rath-Das, Reissner-Murakami-Carrera ones have been presented and overviewed, taking into account the findings of a recent historical note provided by the author. Finite Element FE implementations are examined in Part III. The possible developments of finite elements for layered plates and shells are first outlined. FEs based on the theories considered in Part II are discussed along with those approaches which consist of a specific application of finite element techniques, such as hybrid methods and so-called global/local techniques. The extension of finite elements that were originally developed for isotropic one layered structures to multilayerd plates and shells are first discussed. Works based on classical and refined theories as well as on equivalent single layer and layer-wise descriptions have been overviewed. Development of available zig-zag finite elements has been considered for the three cases of zig-zag theories. Finite elements based on other approches are also discussed. Among these, FEs based on asymtotic theories, degenerate continuum approaches, stress resultant methods, asymtotic methods, hierarchy-p,_-s global/local techniques as well as mixed and hybrid formulations have been overviewed.

Theories and Finite Elements for Multilayered, Anisotropic, Composite Plates and Shells

A review of displacement and stress based refined theories for isotropic and anisotropic laminated plates is presented. Various equivalent single layer and layerwise theories for laminated plates are discussed together with their merits and demerits. Exact elasticity solutions for the plate problems are cited, wherever available. Various critical issues related to plate theories are presented, based on the literature reviewed.

A Review of Refined Shear Deformation Theories for Isotropic and Anisotropic Laminated Beams

This paper deals with the formulation of finite plate elements for an accurate description of stress and strain fields in multilayered, thick plates subjected to static loadings in the linear, elastic cases. The so-called zig-zag form and interlaminar continuity are addressed in the considered formulations. Two variational statements, the principle of virtual displacements (PVD) and the Reissner mixed variational theorem (RMVT) are employed to derive finite element matrices. Transverse stress assumptions are made in the framework of RMVT and the resulting finite elements describe a priori interlaminar continuous transverse shear and normal stresses. Both modellings which preserve the number of variables independent of the number of layers (equivalent single-layer models, ESLM) and layer-wise models (LWM) in which the same variables are independent in each layer, have been treated. The order N of the expansions assumed for both displacement and transverse stress fields in the plate thickness direction z as well as the number of element nodes Nn have been taken as free parameters of the considered formulations. By varying N, Nn, variable treatment (LW or ESL) as well as variational statements (PVD and RMVT), a large number of newly finite elements have been presented. Finite elements that are based on PVD and RMVT have been called classical and advanced, respectively.

In order to write the matrices related to the considered plate elements in a concise form and to implement them in a computer code (see Part 2), extensive indicial notations have been set out. As a result, all the finite element matrices have been built from only five arrays that were called fundamental nuclei (four are related to RMVT applications and one to PVD cases). These arrays have 3×3 dimensions and are therefore constituted of only nine terms each. The different formulations are then obtained by expanding the indices that were introduced for the N-order expansion, for the number of nodes Nn and for the constitutive layers Nl. Compliances and/or stiffness are accumulated from layer to multilayered level according to the corresponding variable treatment (ESLM or LWM). The numerical evaluations and assessment for the presented plate elements have been provided in the companion paper (Part 2), where it has been concluded that it is convenient to refer to RMVT as a variational tool to formulate multilayered plate elements that are able to give a quasi-three-dimensional description of stress/strain fields in multilayered thick structures. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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J.G. Ren

Papers

Bending theory of laminated plate