Stability of tow-steered curved panels with geometrical defects using higher order FSM

Abstract

For the first time, the parametric instability characteristics of tow-steered variable stiffness composite laminated (VSCL) cylindrical panels is investigated using B-spline finite strip method (FSM). The panel is considered containing geometrical defects including cutout and delamination. The material properties are assumed to vary along the panel axial length of any lamina according to a linear fiber-orientation variation. A uniformly distributed inplane longitudinal loading varies harmoni-cally with time is considered. The instability load frequency regions corresponding to the assumed in-plane parametric load-ing is derived using the Bolotin's first order approximation through an energy approach. In order to demonstrate the capabili-ties of the developed formulation in predicting stability behavior of the thin-walled VSCL structures, some representative results are obtained and compared with those in the literature wherever available. It is shown that the B-spline FSM is a proper tool for extracting the stability boundaries of perforated delaminated VSCL panels.