Toward Damage Tolerance Design of Nonlinear Cracked Laminated Composite Shell Structures under Internal Pressure

摘要

Currently, the commonly adopted approach of damage tolerance design for shell structures under static or steady state internal pressure is the application of bulging factors. As pointed out in a recent paper by the authors, bulging factors available in the literature have several important shortcomings for damage tolerance design and characterization of cracked cylindrical shell structures under internal pressure. The authors have recently proposed the equivalent bulging factors for cracked laminated composite shell structures under internal dynamic pressure. While the equivalent bulging factors have potential to be applied to the damage tolerance design of nonlinear cracked laminated composite shell structures under internal dynamic pressure they still suffer the important limitation that they are only applicable to specific ranges of ratios of crack length to diameter of the shell structures. In order to circumvent this important limitation the maximum nonlinear transversal or out-of-plane response at the center of the flange or edge of the crack is proposed as a viable alternative to damage tolerance design of laminated composite shell structures which are commonly employed in many aircrafts, and aerospace and automotive systems. Computed results for various laminated composite cylindrical shell structures under internal dynamic pressure, and their implications are included in this presentation.