A semi-analytical solution for stress analysis of moderately thick laminated cylindrical panels with various boundary conditions

pStress analysis of moderately thick laminated cylindrical panels with different loading and boundary conditions is presented. Boundary conditions include clamped, simply supported and free while uniform and sinusoidal distributed loadings are considered. Assuming effects of shear deformation and initial curvature, governing equations of the problem are derived. The governing partial differential equations (PDEs) in terms of three displacement components, two rotations and ten stress resultants include a system of 15 first order PDEs. Application of the extended Kantorovich method (EKM) to the governing equations yields to a double set of algebric-differential equations in terms of x and 0. The resulted systems are then solved iteratively with very fast convergence. It is demonstrated that the method converges rapidly independent of initial guess functions. Comparisons of the EKM predictions with other analytical and FEM analyses are in close agreement. More results for panels with particular boundary conditions are presented for future studies. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.