Dynamic Stability of Woven Fiber Laminated Composite Shallow Shells in Hygrothermal Environment

Abstract

The dynamic stability of bidirectional woven fiber laminated glass/epoxy composite shallow shells subjected to harmonic in-plane loading in hygrothermal environment is considered. An eight-noded isoparametric shell element with five degrees of freedom is used in the analysis. In the present finite element formulation, a composite doubly curved shell model based on first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) is used for the dynamic stability analysis of shell panels subjected to hygrothermal loading. A program is developed using MATLAB for the parametric study on the dynamic stability of shell panels under the hygrothermal field. The effects of various parameters like static load factor, curvature, shallowness, temperature, moisture, stacking sequence and boundary conditions on the dynamic instability regions of woven fiber glass/epoxy shell panels are investigated. The location of dynamic instability regions is shown to affect significantly due to presence of the hygrothermal field.