BUCKLING ANALYSIS OF THIN WALLED COMPOSITE CYLINDRICAL SHELLS USING FINITE STRIP METHOD (A FULL ENERGY APPROACH)

A semi-analytical method based on full energy approach called finite strip method (FSM) is used to calculate buckling strength of thin-walled FRP cylindrical shell structures under uniform axial stress. Finite Strip is a branch of finite element method (FEM) that is useful in analyzing prismatic structures that meet simply supported end conditions (in present approach). Finally in this paper, calculated results from FSM are compared with those obtained from FEM and with those available in the literature. The comparison demonstrates the abilities of this method to substitute for other timeconsuming or complicated methods.

Keywords:

Finite Strip Method , Cylindrical Shell , Buckling Analysis