INCREMENTAL STRESSES IN LOADED ORTHOTROPIC CIRCULAR MEMBRANE TUBES .2. NUMERICAL-SOLUTION

In Part I of this article (1995, Int. J. Solids Structures 32, 1907-1925) a simplified theory for the incremental state of stress in an orthotropic circular membrane tube was presented. In this second part, a numerical method is devised to solve the resulting elliptic sixth-order system of equations, for tubes which contain no slits or holes. In this method, Fourier decomposition is used in the circumferential direction and finite element discretization is used in the longitudinal direction. Special finite elements with six degrees-of-freedom are employed. Using this numerical method, the solutions of several specific problems of membrane tubes are obtained, presented and discussed. These include two problems concerning the decay of boundary disturbances. The theoretical treatment of such decay is also discussed.