ASSESSMENT OF SHELL THEORIES FOR THE STATIC ANALYSIS OF CROSS-PLY LAMINATED CIRCULAR CYLINDRICAL-SHELLS

This paper examines the accuracy of classical shell theories (CST) acc ording to Flugge, Sanders, Love and Donnell, with respect to the recen tly available three-dimensional elasticity solution, for cross-ply lam inated circular cylindrical shells under static loads. Further, a stud y has also been made to examine to what extent incorporation of first order shear deformation (FSDT), in aforementioned shell theories, impr oves the results. In general, all the basic equations (for both CST an d FSDT), of aforementioned shell theories, have been presented in a un ified form using tracer coefficients. A Navier type solution has been used to analyse both a simply supported circular cylindrical shell of revolution and an all round simply supported circular cylindrical shel l panel. A parametric study has been carried out keeping in view the l amination schemes and geometrical parameters of the shell. From the de tailed comparisons of the results it has been shown that (i) Donnell's theory (CST and FSDT) could be in error for certain lamination scheme s and geometrical parameters and (ii) improved results for stresses an d displacements could be obtained by incorporating shear deformation o n more accurate theory like Flugge (CST).