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...

Quantifying the influence of membrane forces, curvature, and imperfections on the nonlinear buckling load of thin-shells

Shells tend to be thin because their curvature enables them to carry distributed loads as membrane forces. The property of thinness stems from shells’ capacity to store membrane strain energy without much deformation. As a result, buckling failures often govern the design of shell structures. These buckling failures usually start locally, at a...