IOSR Journal of Mechanical and Civil Engineering (IOSR-JMCE) e-ISSN: 2278-1684,p-ISSN: 2320-334X, Volume 7, Issue 6 (Jul. - Aug. 2013), PP 37-40 www.iosrjournals.org www.iosrjournals.org 37 | Page Study of Different Structural Elements Used For Thin Composite Plate Ms. Neha V. Potdar. 1 , Prof. Maruti A. Mohite. 2 1 PG Scholar, Mechanical Engineering- Design, Sinhgad Institute of Technology, Lonavla, India 2 Associate Professor,Mechanical Engineering, Sinhgad Institute of Technology, Lonavla, India Abstract: Composites are extensively used in aerospace and automotive industry. The requirement usually is to create holes in composite members to facilitate mounting of various members. These holes act as stress concentration regions and the causes of failure. At present, the analytical treatments developed are very restrictive to particular cases. Thus to analyze complex hole patterns subjected to tensile loadings there is necessity of FEA software. FEA tool offers different structural elements for analysis, each with different number of nodes. Engineer has to shortlist the elements and need to carryout permutations for selecting suitable element for analysis. Thus study of these different elements is carried out as part of this paper. Different Structural Finite elements are thus studied and applied to a model under study for tensile loading condition. The results of FE Analysis are validated against analytical solution and best fit Structural element is suggested at the end if paper. Scope of this study is limited to graphite/epoxy composites and can be extended further. Keywords: composite, FEA, ANSYS, Structural, Nodes I. Introduction In recent years composite materials are extensively used in various fields of life from automotive, aerospace industry to sports industry. Composites have proven their importance even in the field of medical science like dentures. Their higher mechanical properties in contrast to light weight keep them on high demand. Being an orthotropic material it shows higher 'directional mechanical properties', higher strength and stiffness combined with low density.[1] Theories developed for analysis of isotropic material don't give good results for composite material. A numerical analysis of composite component becomes difficult as the theories developed for orthotropic material are complex in nature. Micro detailed level analysis is more complex, compromising accuracy of results. Finite Element Analysis thus proves accurate and fast solution for complex problems of orthotropic structures.[1] II. Analysis ANSYS is widely used software tool to carry out such complex Finite Element Analysis. It offers sets of elements for single as well as Multi-Dimensional analysis. e.g. PLANE42 for 2-D analysis, SOLID185 for 3- D Analysis. Every element offered by software has its own accuracy and suitability for a type of application, material and analysis. Table given below has exhaustive list of structural elements used in ANSYS. [2,3] Nodes 2-D Elements 3-D Elements PLANE SHELL SOLID 4 - Node PLANE42 SHELL43 SHELL181 8-Node PLANE82 SHELL93 SOLID45 SOLID185 10-Node SOLID187 Table 1. List of different structural elements present in ANSYS for FEA.[3] The aim of this paper is to study structural elements available with ANSYS Software and to select the suitable structural Element for FEA of a composite plate with central circular hole. For this purpose a thin composite plate of Graphite/Epoxy Composite with dimension 100mm x 300mm x 5mm is chosen shown in Fig.1. Analytical treatments were carried out with reference to Whitney-Nuimer's Model. Simulations were performed with the help of ANSYS Parametric Design Language. The specimens were modeled with different Structural elements (Table 1) and the Stresses in Y direction are compared with stress calculated analytically.