Buckling behaviour of GFRP cylindrical shells subjected to axial compression load

Abstract This paper presents an experimental study into the buckling behaviour of glass fabric-reinforced polymer (GFRP) cylindrical shells subjected to axial compression load. The tests were conducted on six cylindrical shells with different ratios of h/r. It was concluded that the GFRP cylindrical shells showed the full-buckling strength and had local buckling failure mode. Moreover, the nonlinear numerical analysis and analytical procedure were developed. In general, the results indicated that there is an acceptable adaptation between the experimental, theoretical and numerical results.