The use of initial imperfection approach in design process and buckling failure evaluation of axially compressed composite cylindrical shells

Abstract Thin-walled cylindrical shells are susceptible to buckling failures caused by the axial compressive loading. During the design process or the buckling failure evaluation of axially-compressed cylindrical shells, initial geometric and loading imperfections are of important parameters for the analyses. Therefore, the engineers/designers are expected to well understand the physical behaviours of shell buckling to prevent unexpected serious failure in structures. In particular, it is widely reported that no efficient guidelines for modelling imperfections in composite structures are available. Knowledge obtained from the relevant works is open for updates and highly sought. In this work, we study the influence of imperfections on the critical buckling of axially compressed cylindrical shells for different geometries and composite materials (Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP), Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP)) and aluminium using the finite element (FE) analysis. Two different imperfection techniques called eigenmode-affine method and single perturbation load approach (SPLA) were adopted. Validations of the present results with the published experimental data were presented. The use of the SPLA for introducing an imperfection in axially compressed composite cylindrical shells seemed to be desirable in a preliminary design process and an investigation of a buckling failure. The knockdown factors produced by the SPLA were becoming attractive to account for uncertainties in the structure.