Composite Cylindrical Shell Buckling: Simulation & Experimental Correlation

Guidelines dating back 50 years, NASA SP-8007, are employed today in the design of thin-walled launch vehicle structures. Due to advances in materials, structural designs, and manufacturing techniques since the publication of SP-8007, the development of new knockdown factors for contemporary launch vehicle structures is an ongoing subject of...

On Introducing Imperfection in the Non-Linear Analysis of Buckling of Thin Shell Structures

This master thesis details the investigation of the effect of geometrical imperfection on thin shell structures using general FEM software packages. The author proposes a finite element based method for the analysis and design of thin shell structures, and describes the implementation of such a procedure on four different FEM packages. The...

The nonlinear analysis part of B2000: a first evaluation

In this report a description is given of the nonlinear package of B2000. The set-up of the continuation procedure which controls the nonlinear calculations is explained. At some points the existing continuation procedure was modified to enhance its performance. The nonlinear package contains a nonlinear rod element and a nonlinear thick shell...

A CAD-system for the design of stiffened panels in wing box structures

In this paper the CAD system DESTIP is described. DESTIP is developed at the NLR for designing compression panels in wing box structures. Application of the system yields optimal panels in the sense that they meet all the requirements imposed by the designer and have minimum weight per unit width. Weight reductions ranging from 0 to 10% have...

A finite element model to study the buckling behaviour of general orthotropic, midplane symmetric and elastic plates

A finite element model has been developed, which incorporates the bending-torsional coupling effect, as it occurs in general orthotropic, midplane symmetric, elastic plates in order to analyse its influence on the buckling behaviour of such plates. Some results have been compared with known exact and approximate solutions.