Research Progress on Static and Dynamic Problems of Variable Angle Tow Composite Plates and Shells

In recent years, with the development of advanced Automatic Fiber Placement (AFP) technology, it has become feasible to produce Variable Angle Tow (VAT) composites, whose material properties continuously change with space position. These new kind of composite plate/shell structures manufactured by AFP technology not only show stronger designability than their traditional counterparts, but also exhibit great advantages in improving structural efficiency, which paves an important way to realize the development of high-performance and lightweight aerospace industrial equipments. Both the general anisotropic property and inplane variable stiffness characteristic inherent in VAT composites, however, bring great difficulties to the static and dynamic analysis of these new kind of variable stiffness composite structures. Therefore, it is very important to develop the mechanical models and computational methods for the variable stiffness composite plate/shell structures, in order to understand their complex mechanical mechanisms and further promote their applications in aerospace engineering. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the progress of researches on static and dynamic problems of VAT composite plate/shell structures in recent years, and to briefly present the latest research achievements in terms of theoretical analysis models and numerical calculation methods. Finally, the limitations of static and dynamic research on VAT composite plate/shell structures are discussed and the future theoretical analysis researches are prospected.