The performance of steel conical shells reinforced with CFRP laminates subjected to uniform external pressure

摘要

This paper presents an experimental study into the behaviour of steel conical shells reinforced by carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates subjected to uniform external pressure. The tests were conducted on nine conical shells with different slenderness ratios, which utilised different number of CFRP layers. It was concluded that the CFRP laminates increased the stiffness and buckling strength of conical shells, with the increase depending on the conical shell slenderness ratio. Additionally, existing analytical models for predicting the buckling strength of the unreinforced conical shells were visited and modifications were proposed for predicting the buckling strength of reinforced conical shells by CFRP laminates. Comparable predilections between the modified analytical models and the experiments were observed. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.