A study of impact induced stress due low velocity impact on laminated composite skewed hypar shell roof

The doubly ruled hypar shell, being one of the most feasible shell roof configurations, enjoys industrial preference for covering large column free areas. This class of shells is unique as the only curvature here is the cross curvature and these do not admit easy closed form solution particularly when the boundary conditions are complicated. Laminated composite, an innate choice to different industrial sectors for its huge specific strength and stiffness, good weathering resistance, is now being extensively employed in civil engineering. However the low transverse shear strength of the composite shell impelled the researchers to study the response of the same under the action of impact loads. In the present study, a finite element code is functioned to investigate the impact induced stress history generated in simply supported laminated composite hypar shell for different impact velocities of a spherical solid striker. Contact behavior is described by modified Hertzian contact law where as time dependent equations are solved using Newmark’s time integration algorithm in present analysis. A practicing engineer often has to select a particular shell option consisting stacking sequence among a number of possibilities. The present paper discusses the behaviour of composite hypars under low velocity impact and different stresses induced due to the same from engineering standpoint to propose a selection guide line among the available options and to proposes values of practical parameters like the equivalent static loads and dynamic magnification factors for designing such shells through static simplification of the problems.