BUCKLING ANALYSIS OF COMPOSITE CYLINDRICAL SHELL STRUCTURE USING FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

Abstract

When designing cylindrical shells one should consider not only the strength problem in service, but also the buckling problem. Cylindrical shells such as thin-walled structures are susceptible to buckling when subjected to static and dynamic stresses. The vessels are exposed to dynamic sea conditions depending on their usage. The functional failure of a pressurized composite vessel or a composite pipe in the form of leakage or weeping of the contained gas or fluid is more critical than the loss of structural load-bearing capacity as far as design and performance of the composites are concerned. Fiber- reinforced composite shells are increasingly being used in marine applications over past few decades due to their light weight and high resistance to salt water corrosion for enhancing their structural efficiency and performance. The leakage failure of a filament-wound fiber composite vessel subjected to combined internal pressure and axial loading is commonly viewed as a result of progressive damage  produced by the coalescence of micro cracks, thus creating a through thickness crack path prior to the complete loss of structural load-bearing capability. In this paper critical buckling  pressure is been found out for three composite materials viz. Glass/epoxy, Carbon/epoxy and Aluminium AA6061 with 8 mm and 12 mm thickness both analytically and using ANSYS and comparative analysis is presented.