Buckling and strain response of filament winding composite cylindrical shell subjected to hydrostatic pressure: Numerical solution and experiment

In the present work, an analytical solution of the buckling problem of the filament winding composite cylindrical shell is presented. Based on this solution, a cylindrical shell model fabricated by filament winding process using T700-12 K carbon/epoxy is analyzed. Compared with the experimental data, the analytical solution is verified to accurately predict the critical buckling pressure with an error of only 3.47%. Besides, the buckling mode obtained by the numerical analysis is in good agreement with the experimental result. The relationship between strain response and the crack propagation path are investigated. The results show: circumferential strain increases in the clockwise direction of the crack propagation path, and decreased in the anticlockwise direction. Unlike the circumferential strain, the axial strain response exhibits contrary regularity. In terms of buckling deformation and collapse, the experimental result show that the shell does not lose the carrying capacity when the filament winding composite cylindrical shell buckles. Instead, it is observed that the collapse pressure is 13.04% higher than the critical buckling pressure when the cylindrical shell collapses and loses the ultimate load bearing capacity in this study.