Investigation on the Buckling Behavior of GFRP Thin-walled Cylindrical Shells under External Pressure

Structural applications of composite materials are used in various structures of oil and gas industry, water supply and sewage systems and a wide range of industries, such as marine, aerospace, and military industries. Experimental and numerical studies show that the structural buckling failure is the major danger action for thin-walled cylindrical shells. Uniform lateral loading in tanks occurs when tanks are in the state of liquid discharge. Moreover, if special contrivances such as the drainage valves do not work or properly, then buckling phenomenon and will cause an overall failure in the tank. There are extensive research on the buckling and post-buckling of thin-walled steel tanks under external pressure, but research on composite cylindrical shells is very low. The only studies in the context of buckling of external pressure are done, by Hur et al. (2008) and Moreno et al. (2008), with the difference that in both studies, the type of material and loading are different from the present study. In this paper the effect of L/R geometrical parameter on the buckling behavior of GFRP cylindrical tanks will be studied.