Buckling Analysis of Variable Stiffness Composite Cylindrical Shells Under Axial Compression Considering Imperfection Sensitivity

Abstract

Thin-walled composite cylindrical shells are nowadays widely used as primary structures in the aerospace industry. The so-called variable stiffness (VS) composite cylindrical shells with flexible stiffness tailoring characteristics have been made possible by existing AFP techniques. Considering the inherent imperfection sensitivity property of axially compressed thin-walled cylindrical shells, the buckling behaviors of the axially compressed VS composite cylindrical shells with initial geometric imperfections and delamination imperfections are investigated respectively in this paper. The design buckling loads of the axially compressed VS composite cylindrical shells are first determined by the probing method, which is verified by comparing with the existing test data and numerical simulation results. Additionally, a parametric study is conducted to investigate the effects of delamination imperfections on the buckling loads. The constraint delamination sizes of the VS composite cylindrical shells based on the design buckling load in this paper are given. Furthermore, the effects of continuously variable fiber angles on the buckling loads are investigated considering the imperfection sensitivity. The specific VS composite cylindrical shells with both high- buckling loads and low-imperfection sensitivity are obtained. Results indicate that the effects of imperfection sensitivity need to be carefully considered in buckling design of the axially compressed VS composite cylindrical shells.