Buckling Characteristics of Sandwich Conical Shells with Variable Skin Thickness

In this paper, an analytical solution is presented to study the buckling analysis of the composite sandwich conical shells with variable skin thickness and reinforced with lattice cores. This problem involves the filament wound conical shells, where the skin thickness varies through the length of the shell. First, the reinforced core is converted to a layer by analyzing smeared moments and forces on a unit cell. Next, superimposing the stiffness contribution of the stiffeners with those of the inner and outer shells, the equivalent stiffness of the whole structure is achieved. The power series method based on the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) is employed to solve the buckling load of the laminated sandwich conical shell. Numerical solution is conducted to verify analytical results by preparing finite element models. Furthermore, using the analytical model, the impact of several design parameters like buckling load, specific buckling load, stiffener orientation, value of stiffeners angle, lamination angle and semi-vertex angle is investigated, and presented based on the results of this study.

Automated summary

This study presents an analytical solution for the buckling analysis of composite sandwich conical shells. By analyzing the forces on a unit cell, the reinforced core is converted to a layer and its stiffness is superimposed with those of the inner and outer shells to achieve the equivalent stiffness of the whole structure. Numerical solutions verify the analytical results and investigate the impact of various design parameters on structural performance.