A reduced solution for fully anisotropic circular cylindrical shells subject to axial compression buckling

The buckling of laminated circular cylindrical shells has received much attention due to its broad use in engineering applications. However, most of the studies have been done in the dimensional form, which complicates their usage due to the huge range of material properties available. The current study develops the non-dimensional scheme for a fully anisotropic structure. In addition, a novel technique is employed to reduce the solution of the buckling equation to just one variable. The main assumption used is that all variables are continuous, thus giving the lower bound of the buckling load. This allows significant savings in the computational time, increasingly so in complex optimization studies. Thus it is suitable for use in the early design stage. For restricted classes of laminates, very simple expressions can be obtained for the buckling load.