Volume 11, Issue 3, 2002

A Parametric Study of the Effect of Geometric Imperfections on the Buckling Behaviour of Composite Laminated Cylinders*

A.S. Petreli1 and N.G. Tsouvalis2

1Postgraduate Student, 2Assistant Professor

Shipbuilding Technology Laboratory, Dept. of Marine Structures, School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, National Technical University of Athens

(Received 9/01; accepted 4/02)

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a parametric study about the type and magnitude of initial imperfections on the buckling behaviour of composite laminated cylinders under external hydrostatic load. Using the FE method, cylinders with two particular types of initial imperfections are non-linearly analysed. Results show that significant improvement of the cylinder buckling strength is observed when initial imperfections have a selected shape and magnitude, which induces a final cylinder deflected shape different from the modeshape of the geometrically perfect cylinder.

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