Saint-Venant torsion of arbitrarily shaped orthotropic composite or FGM sections by a hybrid finite element approach

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to calculate the torsional rigidity and maximum shear stresses of arbitrarily shaped orthotropic composite or functionally graded material sections on the basis of a hybrid finite element approach. A hybrid finite element based on a Hellinger–Reissner functional is presented. A set of numerical examples is solved to verify the proposed method, and a parametrical study is also performed.