Influence of Transverse Shear Deformation on the Scaling of Cross-Ply Cylindrical Shells

Abstract

A heretofore unavailable closed-form solution, based on the constant shear- angle theory (CST), is obtained for a general unsymmetric cross-ply circumferentially complete cylindrical shell, with arbitrary boundary conditions and subjected to uniform internal pressure. A novel CLT (classical lamination theory)-based far-field asymptotic analysis has been employed to define dimensionless response parameters—maximum non dimensionalized transverse displacement and its nondimensionalized location—which have been shown to be the upper bounds for their CST- and LCST (layerwise constant shear angle theory)-based counterparts. They provide a rational basis for the scaling anal ysis of laminated cross-ply cylindrical shells. Numerical results are presented for three- layer (symmetric) and two-layer (antisymmetric) cross-ply cylindrical shells with simply- supported edges and are compared with the corresponding CLT-based analytical solutions and LCST-based finite element solutions. These results clearly demonstrate the effects of transverse shear deformation, asymmetry of lamination, and the geometric variables on the predicted displacements and stresses and also on the scaling analysis of such shells.