Numerical Solutions for Thick-Walled Laminated Composite Spheres under Impact Pressure

In this paper, the thick-walled laminated, orthotropic as well as bimaterial, composite hollow spheres under impact pressure are analyzed in detail by using the semi-discrete finite element method with the Houbolt time-integration scheme which results in unconditionally stable transient numerical results. Numerical results are obtained by using the self-constructed spherically symmetric (one-dimensional) and axially symmetric (two-dimensional) finite element programs, and compared with the previous solutions by other researchers, being shown some of which are incorrect. The finite element package Nastran is also adopted for numerical comparison.