Buckling of a Composite Cylinder

Application ID: 67261

Buckling is a structural instability that can lead to failure of a component even without initial material failure. Computation of the critical buckling loads and mode shapes can therefore be important from a design viewpoint, even though it has previously been determined that the loading of the component only causes elastic deformations. This applies to components made from laminated composite materials, where elastic properties, ply thicknesses and stacking sequence of a composite laminate will affect buckling loads and mode shapes.

This example illustrates a linear buckling analysis of a composite cylinder under compressive loading and fixed-end conditions. The composite cylinder is made up of eight layers (plies) of a carbon fiber reinforced epoxy material having different fiber orientations. An Equivalent Single Layer (ESL) theory based approach is used for this analysis. The effect of stacking sequence on the critical load factor is analyzed for different types of balanced laminates, such as a symmetric angle-ply laminate and an antisymmetric angle-ply laminate.
