Experimental and numerical vibration correlation of pre-stressed laminated reinforced panel

This research work deals with the buckling load prediction of reinforced laminated composite panels of aeronautical interest. Being subjected to pure compression, these panels are characterized by stable post-buckling. Thus, the vibration correlation technique (VCT) is utilized herein as an effective nondestructive means to extrapolate critical loads from free vibration measurements. A hierarchical design of experiments, making use of nested multifactors (i.e. panel replicas, test setups, and measurement repetitions), is employed to estimate components of variance. The experimental outcomes are compared with the results of an advanced finite element model with layer-wise kinematics and based on the Carrera Unified Formulation (CUF). The results show that, although obtained with a low number of tests and specimens, the VCT experiments are repeatable and provide a good validation of the numerical simulations, which are demonstrated to be accurate and reliable.