An error analysis approach for laminated composite plate finite element models

Errors in laminated composite plate finite element models occur at both the individual element level and at the discretization level. This paper shows that parasitic shear causes individual element errors and that its sources must be eliminated if numerically and physically correct results are to be provided by the finite element analysis. In addition, discretization errors occur when the behavior of the continuum is represented by a finite number of degrees of freedom. A procedure to estimate discretization errors in laminated composite plate finite element models and guide refinement, in order to achieve an acceptable level of accuracy, is developed. The error estimator built is based on the energy norm of the error in stress resultants.