Residual stress and electromagnetic characteristics in loop type frequency selective surface embedded hybrid structures

Abstract

Residual stresses occur in frequency-selective surface (FSS)-embedded composite structures after co-curing due to differences between the coefficients of thermal expansion between composite skins and FSSs. Furthermore, the electromagnetic characteristics may be affected by the deformation of the FSS pattern by residual stresses. Therefore, we studied the changes in electromagnetic characteristics due to the deformation of FSS, using residual stresses to deform loop-type FSS-embedded hybrid composites. We considered the effects of loop-type FSS patterns of equal dimension as well as the stacking sequences of composite laminates on the electromagnetic characteristics of FSSs: Square loop, triangular loop and circular loop. The stacking sequences of composite laminates considered in this study were [0]₈, [0/90]₄, [±45]₄ and [0/±45/90]₂. The FSS was located between composite laminates in the middle plane. To determine the residual stresses and deformations in the FSS embedded laminate structures, the thermal loading condition in the finite element analysis was induced by cooling the hybrid structures from 125°C to 20°C based on the cure cycle of the composite. Also, the electromagnetic reflection characteristics of the hybrid structures were predicted using deformed models by residual stresses, considering the effects of stacking sequence of composite laminates. The results showed that the maximum residual stresses and deformations were produced in the [0]₈ composites with all three loop-types of FSS pattern. However, the maximum resonance frequency shifts occurred in the square and triangle loop-types with stacking sequence of [0]₈, while the maximum resonance frequency shift occurred in the circular loop-type with stacking sequence of [0/±45/90]₂.