Buckling analysis of unitized curvilinearly stiffened composite panels

Abstract Innovative manufacturing technology has led to the fabrication of complex shape and multi-functional structures by using the concept of integrated and bonded unitized structural components. To study the stability behavior of such structural designs, this paper presents an efficient finite element buckling analysis of unitized stiffened composite panel stiffened by arbitrarily shaped stiffeners. A first-order shear-deformation theory is employed for both the panel and the stiffeners. Displacement compatibility conditions are imposed at the panel-stiffeners interfaces. To obviate remeshing when the stiffener shape changes, the stiffeners’ geometry and displacement are expressed in terms of those of the panel middle surface through compatibility conditions that make use of the interpolation polynomials employed in the finite element method. To accommodate any shaped stiffeners, a generalized geometry parametrization tool is developed to parameterize the shape of the stiffeners including the stiffener placement and the stiffener geometric curvature. Convergence and validation studies using the present method for the buckling analysis of stiffened isotropic and composite panels are conducted to illustrate the accuracy of the present method. Parametric studies show that the stiffener placement, the stiffener geometric curvature, the stiffener depth ratio (height-to-width ratio) and laminates fiber ply orientation influence both the plate bucking load and the correspond buckling mode shape. The tailoriability of the stiffeners shape and the laminates fiber ply orientation provides an enhanced design space in the structural design for improving the structural stability.