This study focuses on the deformation of cross arms made from composite material under static loading. Two materials properties of fiberglass with are assigned to the cross arms model and it is subjected to a load at the one end of the cross arms. A bracing support is then installed, and the deformation and stress experienced by the cross arms are observed and compared with the case where no bracing support is used. The results obtained show that material B has lower deformation value, but experienced greater stress compared to material A. The bracing managed to reduce the total deformation by about 12% and 20% for material A and B respectively. The reduction of stresses experienced by the cross arms ranges from 4% to 30%.

This study investigated the influence of laminate properties toward the collapse of composite cross arm structure under multi-axial quasi-static loading. A three-dimensional finite-element model of a cross arm was developed and integrated with Hashin’s failure subroutine to predict the inter-laminar damages of the composite upon its application. The mechanical deformation and failure of the composite structure were evaluated over three laminate properties. This investigation revealed that variation in laminates properties yielded different structural deflection and laminate damages. The cross arm with a greater young modulus and ultimate stresses (laminate B) experienced a single failure mode of fiber buckling in compression at deflection of 0.082 m. For the given multi-axial load, the laminate configuration and properties considered in this study failed to prevent the failure of the cross arm.

In this paper, the effects of the stacking sequence on the mechanical performance and damage formation of composite laminates subjected to multi-axial quasi-static loading is investigated, considering intra-laminar damage onset. The response of the composite laminate configurations characterized by different stacking sequences subjected to multi-axial quasi-static loading have been studied to predict the influence on the static displacement and damage development. A finite element (FE) model has been used to numerically simulate the response of the composite structure. ABAQUS/EXPLICT FE environment has been considered for the analyses and Hashin’s failure criteria has been adopted using a VUMAT subroutine to model the intra-laminar damage formation in the analyzed composite structure.