Initial buckling of composite cylindrical panels with random material properties

Composites are known to display a considerable amount of scatter in their material properties due to a large number of parameters associated with their fabrication and manufacturing processes. In the present study, the material properties have been modeled as random variables for accurate prediction of the system behavior. Shear deformation effects have been incorporated in the governing equations. First-order perturbation technique has been employed to obtain the second-order buckling load statistics. The results have been presented for composite cylindrical panels with all edges simply supported. These results demonstrate the dependence of scatter in buckling loads on the basic random variables. The effects of side-to-thickness ratio, aspect ratio, curvature-to-side ratio and change in standard deviation of input random variables have been investigated for cross-ply symmetric and anti-symmetric laminates. The approach has been validated by a comparison of the results with those obtained with Monte Carlo simulation. The results for the mean buckling load with different shear deformation theories have also been compared with those available in the literature