BUCKLING OF FIBER-REINFORCED CIRCULAR CYLINDERS UNDER AXIAL COMPRESSION.

A combined analytical and experimental program was undertaken to determine design criteria for accurately predicting the buckling strength of laminated, composite, three-ply, anisotropic circular cylindrical shells. It was found that changing fiber orientation not only increased the buckling loads for perfect shells, but also increased their imperfection sensitivity. It was also demonstrated that an equivalent axisymmetric or asymmetric imperfection amplitude calculated from a maximum measured root-mean square value provides an accurate estimate of the load reduction associated with random shape imperfections. Although the predicted response was slightly higher than the experimental results, fairly good agreement was found between analytical and experimental results.