Buckling of geometrically imperfect cylindrical shells — definition of a buckling load

Abstract

On the basis of extensive buckling tests and analytical and numerical buckling analyses for composite cylinders it became desirable to provide a recommendation for the most reliable evaluation of stability limits for imperfect CFRP cylinders subjected to axial compression. This paper reports on different approaches including linear, non-linear and dynamic non-linear FE analysis results and discusses the related effects and potential difficulties.