Buckling of optimised curved composite panels under shear and in-plane bending

Abstract Due to the level of complexity of the governing equations for curved composite panels, few solutions, allowing the critical buckling loads and postbuckling behaviour of such structures to be determined, exist. Those that do are for basic problems based on single load types and simple boundary conditions. For other cases, such behaviour can only be determined by either grossly simplifying both the load and boundary conditions to those which can be predicted using these simplified equations (which may lead to overestimations in buckling load, and thereby premature failure or collapse), or by using alternative tools such as finite strip techniques or finite element analyses. This paper details a series of tests carried out to determine the behaviour of a number of optimised fibre composite panels of differing radii of curvature and aspect ratio, simply supported along two edges and built in along the other two, subject to a varying combination of shear and in-plane bending, for which no theoretical solution exists, and assesses the suitability of finite strip techniques and finite element analysis to predict this behaviour.