Buckling of woven GFRP cylinders under concentric and eccentric compression

The experimental behaviour of laminated glass fibre-reinforced plastic (GFR P) cylinders under compression and bending is examined in this paper. The l aminates are of type 'Rovimat 1200' consisting of woven glass fibre roving, with a chopped mat on one side, within a polyester resin matrix. Two and t hree-ply cylinders with various orthogonal orientations were considered, fo r which the nominal radius-to-thickness ratio was about 108 and 72, respect ively. Use was made of an automated laser scanning system for measuring geo metric imperfections and progressive buckling deformations of the models. F ollowing a description of the specimen and loading details, the results of experiments on ten models are presented. The results include thickness and imperfection mapping. displacement and load measurements as well as importa nt observations regarding the failure mode and overall behaviour of each mo del. The findings highlight the effects of laminate construction and loadin g eccentricity on the buckling strength of cylinders within the range exami ned. Both elastic buckling and material-dominated failure modes were observ ed, depending on the slenderness and load type considered. The tests also p rovide detailed experimental data, which are necessary for further analytic al and design studies. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.