Finite element studies on buckling of laminated cylindrical skew panels

Abstract: The present paper presents the finite element studies made on critical buckling load of isotropic and laminated composite cylindrical skew panels. Analysis is performed using CQUAD4 and CQUAD8 elements of MSC/NASTRAN. It is found that the CQUAD8 element yields bet -ter results compared to the CQUAD4 element in terms of accuracy and convergence. Using the CQUAD8 element, the effects of the panel angle, skew angle, aspect ratio, and length-to-thickness ratio on the critical buckling load of isotropic cylindrical skew panels have been studied. The effects of additional parameters such as fiber orienta-tion angle, numbers of layers (NL), and stacking sequence on the critical buckling load of laminated composite cylin-drical skew panels have also been studied. The critical buckling loads are found to increase with the increase in panel angle and skew angle. When the NL in the laminate is large, the variation of the critical buckling load with the NL is not appreciable. The boundary conditions are found to have significant influence on the critical buckling load.