Buckling and dynamic characteristics of a laminated cylindrical panel under non-uniform thermal load

Abstract

Buckling and free vibration behavior of a laminated cylindrical panel exposed to non-uniform thermal load is addressed in the present study. The approach comprises of three portions, in the first portion, heat transfer analysis is carried out to compute the non-uniform temperature fields, whereas second portion consists of static analysis wherein stress fields due to thermal load is obtained, and the last portion consists of buckling and prestressed modal analyzes to capture the critical buckling temperature as well as first five natural frequencies and associated mode shapes. Finite element is used to perform the numerical investigation. The detailed parametric study is carried out to analyze the effect of nature of temperature variation across the panel, laminate sequence and structural boundary constraints on the buckling and free vibration behavior. The relation between the buckling temperature of the panel under uniform temperature field and non-uniform temperature field is established using magnification factor. Among four cases considered in this study for position of heat sources, highest magnification factor is observed at the forefront curved edge of the panel where heat source is placed. It is also observed that thermal buckling strength and buckling mode shapes are highly sensitive to nature of temperature field and the effect is significant for the above-mentioned temperature field. Furthermore, it is also observed that the panel with antisymmetric laminate has better buckling strength. Free vibration frequencies and the associated mode shapes are significantly influenced by the non-uniform temperature variations.