STRESSES IN ROTATING COMPOSITE CYLINDRICAL-SHELLS

Stresses in composite cylindrical shells rotating with a constant spee d about their longitudinal axis are analyzed. Each ply or ply group is treated as a separate thin layer of homogeneous and orthotropic mater ial under the interfacial stresses as surface loading. There is no lim itation on the total thickness of the shell. The circumferential stres s, motivated by the conventional thin shell theory, is assumed to vary linearly through the thickness of the layer. The radial stress is det ermined in terms of the circumferential stress through the equilibrium condition, and an average compatibility condition through the thickne ss of the thin layer is used. Numerical results using the present anal ysis show nearly perfect agreement with the exact solution for homogen eous and isotropic cylinders. Some results for cylinders having orthot ropic layers are presented for illustrative purposes.