Buckling analysis of an orthotropic cylindrical shell structure in the ANSYS Mechanical APDL software package

Long-span shell structures are widely used in various industries. To ensure safe modes of operation, it becomes necessary to develop calculation methods and study shell structures for buckling under the applied load. Traditionally, these data are obtained using analytical and semi-analytical methods. This paper presents a description of the process of determining the critical buckling loads and obtaining the “load-deflection” dependences, taking into account large deformations. For this purpose, a method for analyzing the buckling of orthotropic shell structures based on the functionality of finite element software systems is proposed. The computational model of a cylindrical shell structure is presented based on the finite element method in the ANSYS Mechanical APDL 2020 software package. Computational experiments and a comparison of the buckling of structures made of various materials were carried out: steel S345, plexiglass (PMMA), CFRP M60J/Epoxy, GFRP T-10/UPE22-27. It is shown that the ANSYS Mechanical APDL 2020 software package makes it possible to obtain the necessary data for obtaining the “load-deflection” dependencies. For the analysis of large deformations, it can be used only with a sufficiently detailed description of the calculation parameters and the assumptions made for different materials. The values of the critical uniformly distributed load are obtained. Graphs of the dependence of the deflection on the load are presented. The process of deformation is studied, taking into account the geometric nonlinearity and the self-weight of shell structures. The calculation results can be used to automate the calculations of shell structures as an alternative to analytical methods.