Numerical simulation of buckling behavior of thin walled composite shells with embedded shape memory alloy wires

Abstract

In this research, the buckling behavior of thin walled composite shell with embedded shape memory alloy (SMA) wires is examined numerically. To model the SMA wire properties, constitutive equation of Brinson is used and a UMAT subroutine is developed to link with ABAQUS finite element (FE) model performed to simulate the buckling behavior of composite shells. To validate the FE modeling, some experimental specimens are fabricated by filament winding process and tested under axial compressive loading to analyze the buckling behavior of the structure. The results show that the numerical model has sufficient accuracy and the effect of tensile pre-strain and the number of embedded SMA wires on the buckling capacity of the cylindrical composite shell are investigated. As the results obtained, by embedding 4 SMA wires without pre-strain in composite shell, the critical buckling load increases about 35%. Also, by increasing the pre-strain and the number of SMA wires (more than 4), the stiffness of the structure and the magnitude of the critical buckling load are decreased.