Bifurcation of Equilibrium in Thick Orthotropic Cylindrical Shells Under Axial Compression

The bifurcation of equilibrium of an orthotropic thick cylindrical shell under axial compression is studied by an appropriate formulation based on the three-dimensional theory of elasticity. The results from this elasticity solution are compared with the critical loads predicted by the orthotropic Donnell and Timoshenko nonshallow shell formulations. As an example, the cases of an orthotropic material with stiffness constants typical of glass/epoxy and the reinforcing direction along the periphery or along the cylinder axis are considered. The bifurcation points from the Timoshenko formulation are always found to be closer to the elasticity predictions than the ones from the Donnell formulation. For both the orthotropic material cases and the isotropic one, the Timoshenko bifurcation point is lower than the elasticity one, which means that the Timoshenko formulation is conservative. The opposite is true for the Donnell shell theory, i.e., it predicts a critical load higher than the elasticity solution and therefore it is nonconservative. The degree of conservatism of the Timoshenko theory generally increases for thicker shells. Likewise, the Donnell theory becomes in general more nonconservative with thicker construction.