Buckling analysis of sandwich orthotropic cylindrical shells by considering the geometrical imperfection in face sheets

Abstract

A three dimensional analysis for the buckling behavior of a sandwich orthotropic thick cylindrical shell under uniform lateral pressure has been presented. It is assumed that both ends of the shell have the simply supported conditions and the face sheets have an axisymmetric initial geometrical imperfection in the axial direction. The governing differential equations are derived based on the second Piola–Kirchhoff stress tensor and are reduced to a homogenous linear system of equations using differential quadrature method (DQM). The buckling pressures have been calculated for the shell with isotropic core and orthotropic face sheets with 0-degree orientation with respect to the hoop direction. Moreover, buckling pressure reduction parameter has been defined and computed for different imperfection parameters of face sheets and geometrical properties of sandwich shells. The results obtained in the present work are compared with finite element solutions and results reported in the literature and very good agreements have been observed. It is shown that the imperfections have higher effects on the buckling load of thick shells than thin ones. Likewise, it is found that the present method can capture the various geometrical imperfections observed during the manufacturing process or service life.