Effect of rib profile on critical buckling pressure of ring-stiffened composite shells under hydrostatic pressure

ABSTRACT

The buckling behaviour of thin-walled composite cylindrical shells with different rib profiles under hydrostatic pressure is studied in this paper. Various models of composite shells with outer diameter of 324 mm, thickness of 8 mm, length of 800 mm, and 18 different rib profiles are designed. Ribs have same sectional area and the total height is no more than 18 mm. Finite element (FE) models are built and validated by published experimental and FE results. The results for above models are obtained and show that the critical buckling pressure of ring-stiffened composite shells can improve by 44% to 136% compared to that of unstiffened composite shells. The rib total height, web thickness, and rib profile type are three factors affecting the critical buckling pressure of ring-stiffened composite shells. The composite shell stiffened by groove shape can acquire maximum buckling-carrying capacity.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical buckling pressure
• composite shells
• rib profile
• hydrostatic pressure

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China: [grant no 51909219]; China Postdoctoral Science Foundation: [grant no. 2020M673492]; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant no 3102019JC006]; Strategic Research Plan of the Centre for Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering (CENTEC), which is financed by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCT): [grant no UIDB/UIDP/00134/2020].