Response variability of laminate composite plates due to spatially random material parameter

Young’s modulus is at the center of attention in the stochastic finite element analysis since the parameter plays an important role in determining structural behavior. However, the other material parameter of Poisson’s ratio is another independent material parameter that governs the behavior of structural systems. Accordingly, the independent estimation of the influence of this parameter on the uncertain response of a system is of importance from the perspective of stochastic analysis. To this end, we propose a formulation to determine the response variability in laminated composite plates due to the spatial randomness of Poisson’s ratio. To filter out the independent contribution of random Poisson’s ratio, a decomposition of the constitutive matrix into several sub-matrices by using the Taylor’s expansion is needed, which makes the random Poisson’s ratio simple enough to be included in the formulation. To validate the adequacy of the proposed formulation, several examples are chosen and the results are compared with those given by Monte Carlo analysis. By means of the formulation suggested here, it is expected that an extension of the formulation to include the effect of correlations between random Poisson’s ratio and other structural and/or geometrical parameters will be achieved with ease, resulting in a more practical estimation of the response variability of laminated composite plates.