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Buckled unstiffened and grid-stiffened GFRP axially compressed cylindrical shells

From:
Mojtaba Yazdani (1), Hossein Rahimi (1), Akbar Afaghi Khatibi (2) and Saeed Hamzeh (3)
(1) Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, P. O. Box 14115-143 Tehran, Iran.
(2) Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tehran, P. O. Box 11365-4563 Tehran, Iran.
(3) Department of Textile Engineering, Amir Kabir University, P. O .Box 4413-15875 Tehran, Iran
“An experimental investigation into the buckling of GFRP stiffened shells under axial loading”, Scientific Research and Essay Vol.4 (9), pp. 914-920, September, 2009. Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/SRE

ABSTRACT: The results of an experimental study on the buckling behavior of thin-walled GFRP cylindrical shells are presented. The specimens were fabricated from continuous glass fiber using a specially-designed filament winding machine. The buckling behaviors of unstiffened shells and stiffened shells with lozenge, triangular and hexagonal grids were then studied under quasi-static axial loading at room temperature. Due to the thin skin of the shells, all specimens first experienced a general buckling mode as well as barreling under the applied loading. Following this general buckling damage, local buckling mode was seen on all specimens. Based on the experimental results, the critical buckling load was higher for the shells with hexagonal and triangular grids while the unstiffened shells and stiffened shells with lozenge grids exhibited much lower critical buckling load. On the other hand, in very small skin thicknesses, when the specific buckling loads for all specimens were compared, the unstiffened shells showed the highest specific buckling load.

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