The failure of composite laminates is most commonly evaluated through deterministic approaches. However, even though these traditional methods predict the failure well on average, they cannot take into account the inherent probabilistic aspect of failure mechanics. Thus, reli
...
The failure of composite laminates is most commonly evaluated through deterministic approaches. However, even though these traditional methods predict the failure well on average, they cannot take into account the inherent probabilistic aspect of failure mechanics. Thus, reliability methods allow for a better structural assessment and improve the efficiency of the design. One of the most used methods, FORM, is shown to be limited and unreliable for applications in composites. Monte Carlo methods are therefore further used in this research. Furthermore, current reliability research in composites uses very simple models of damage and failure. Based on Monte Carlo simulations, this research was able to include a failure mode-dependent criterion and proposes two methods to model reliability in terms of last ply failure rather than first ply failure.