An accurate approach for buckling analysis of stringer stiffened laminated composite cylindrical shells under axial compression

While the external axial compressive load is applied to only the shell edge of stringer-stiffened shell in the most of numerical and analytical previous studies (entitled as conventional approach), a part of external load is applied to the stringers in real conditions. It leads to decrease the accuracy of the axial buckling load calculated by the conventional eigenvalue analysis approach performed in the most of previous studies. In this study, the distribution of stress in the pre-buckling analysis was enhanced by applying the axial external compressive load to both shell and stringers to perform an accurate eigenvalue analysis of the stringer-stiffened composite shell. In this regard, a model was developed in FORTRAN environment to simulate the laminated stringer-stiffened shell under axial compressive load using finite strip method. The axial buckling load of the shell was obtained through eigenvalue analysis. A comparison was made between the results obtained from the model and those available in the previous studies to evaluate the validity of the results obtained from the model. Through a parametric study, the effects of different parameters such as stringer properties and composite layup on the buckling load of the shell under different loading patterns were investigated. The results indicated that in some cases, the axial buckling load obtained for the conventional approach used in the most of previous studies is significantly overestimated or underestimated due to neglecting the stringer in distribution of external load applied to the stringer-stiffened shell. According to the results obtained from the parametric study, some graphs were derived to show the accuracy of the axial buckling load obtained from the conventional approach utilized in the literature.