Environmental effects on thermally induced multistability in unsymmetric composite laminates

The principles involved in the generation of thermal induced multistability in carbon fibre epoxy laminates have received much interest in the published literature. This work examines the effects of moisture absorption on the mechanical properties of these plates focussing on geometry and 'snap-through' loadings. Samples were monitored from a dry state until moisture equilibrium was achieved. It was observed that substantial changes in geometry and snap-through performance occurred as moisture content increased. As part of this work, a first order strain energy analysis was modified to incorporate a hygrothermal strain term to enable prediction of the laminate shape due to moisture content.