Title: Elastic Buckling Analysis of Angle-Ply Laminated Circular Cylindrical Shells Subjected to Axial Compressive Load.
Abstract: An analysis is presented for the elastic buckling problem of angle-ply laminated circular cylindrical shells subjected to axial compressive load. Based upon the Flugge-type shell theory and the classical lamination theory, the total potential energy of the shell is evaluated analytically, and the buckling equation is formulated by minimizing the functional with respect to unknown coefficients in displacement functions. These displacement functions are introduced in the power series form which automatically satisfy any combination of the geometrical boundary conditions. In numerical examples, the critical buckling loads of the angle-ply laminated shells are calculated, and the effects of varying the boundary conditions, lamination parameters and aspect ratio upon the buckling characteristics are studied. Moreover, the optimum layer stacking conditions which attain the highest critical buckling loads are discussed.