Buckling of the composite orthotropic clamped-clamped cylindrical shell loaded by transverse inertia forces

The paper is concerned with the buckling analysis of the composite orthotropic cylindrical shell with clamped edges subjected to inertia loading. The problem is characterised by a non-uniform pre-buckling stress state. To address this, the relevant governing system of differential equations with variable coefficients has been derived and solved using Galerkin method. As a result, the problem of determining the critical acceleration causing the buckling of shell is reduced to the solution of the corresponding generalised eigenvalue problem. Using the proposed approach, the critical accelerations are calculated for the glass-fibre reinforced shells with various dimensional and stiffness parameters. Results of calculations are compared with those based on finite-element modelling and analysis. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.