FINITE-ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF LAMINATED COMPOSITE PARABOLOID OF REVOLUTION SHELLS

A generalized formulation for the doubly curved laminated composite shell is attempted using eight-noded curved quadratic isoparametric finite elements with all three radii of curvature. The formulation is also applied to the isotropic material as a special case. In the present investigation, only the paraboloid of revolution is taken up for computing the deflections and stress resultants. Various parametric studies are carried out and the current results for both isotropic and laminated composite shells are compared with those available in the published literature. The shape functions are obtained from interpolation polynomial and the element stiffness matrices are formed on the basis of macromechanical analysis of laminates using the principle of minimum potential energy.