Thin-Walled Composite Beams

This monograph is devoted to the foundation of the theory of composite anisotropic thin-walled beams and to its applications in various problems involving the aeronautical/aerospace, helicopter, naval and mechanical structures. Throughout the theoretical part, an effort was made to provide the treatment of the subject by using the equations of the 3-D elasticity theory. Non-classical effects such as transverse shear, warping constraint, anisotropy of constituent materials yielding the coupling of twist-bending (lateral), bending (transversal)-extension have been included and their implications have been thoroughly analyzed. Thermal effects have been included and in order to be able to circumvent their deleterious effects, functionally graded materials have been considered in their construction. Implications of the application of the tailoring technique and of the active feedback control on free vibration, dynamic response, instability and aeroelasticity of such structures have been amply investigated. Special care was exercised throughout this work to address and validate the adopted solution methodologies and the obtained results against those available in the literature and obtained via numerical or experimental means.