Nonlinear Stability Analysis of Laminated Composite Simply Supported Circular Cylindrical Shells Subjected to Partial Axial Loading

摘要

The present investigation deals with the nonlinear stability behavior of cross-ply laminated composite circular cylindrical shells subjected to partial and complete edge loading along with uniform external pressure. The shell is modeled using Donnell's shell theory including the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT). The analysis uses the simply supported boundary condition (at x=0,L N_(xx) =N_(xx), w=M_(xx)=v=ф_θ=0). The equations governing the nonlinear stability behavior of cylindrical shells are derived in terms of displacements (u-v-w) and rotations (ф_x, ф_θ). The applied partial edge loading is expressed in terms of Fourier series, and stress distributions within the cylindrical shell are determined by prebuckling analysis. The study uses multiterm Galerkin's method along with the Newton-Raphson method to solve the governing partial differential equations of the shell nonlinear stability. With the help of numerical investigations, the authors present the number of modes required for the postbuckling analysis and the influence of initial geometric imperfections on the equilibrium path in the presence of partial edge loading. They have developed a simple algorithm based on potential theory to locate the exact location of bifurcation and limit points on the equilibrium path using the bisection method.