Internally pressurized elliptical composite cylinders

Presented is the development of a semi-analytical solution based on minimiz ation of the total potential energy, the Rayleigh-Ritz procedure, and the K antorovich method, to study the response of elliptical composite cylinders to internal pressure. Using the solution, the response of a quasi-isotropic elliptical cylinder is compared with the response of a quasi-isotropic cir cular cylinder to study the effects of noncircular geometry. The distinguis hing features of the response of an ellipse are the inward normal displacem ent at the ends of the major diameter that occur despite the outward force of the internal pressure, the presence of circumferential displacements, an d the presence of inplane shear strains. These effects lead to spatial vari ations, including sign reversals, of a number of displacement, strain, and curvature responses. To study the influence of material orthotropy, the res ponses of axially stiff and circumferentially stiff elliptical cylinders ar e also examined. It is shown that in some instances material orthotropy can be used to mitigate the influence of the elliptical geometry, and make par ticular responses look like those of a circular cylinder. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.