Abstract

In this present study the post buckling cha-racteristics of moderately thick-walled filament-wound carbon#x2013; epoxy composite cylinders under external hydrostatic pressure were investigated through finite element analysis for under water vehicle applications. The winding angles were [#xB1;30/90] FW, [#xB1;45/90] FW and [#xB1;60/90] FW. Finite element software ANSYS 14.0 were used to predicted the buckling pressure of filament-wound composite cylinders. For the finite element modeling of a composite cylinder, an eight-node shell element is used. To verify the finite element results for comparison, three finite element software, MSC/NASTRAN , MSC/MARC and an in-house program ACOS were used. Among these software#x2019;s, the finite element software ANSYS predicts the buckling loads within 1.5% deviation. The analysis and test results showed that the cylinders do not recover the initial buckling pressure after buckling and that this leads directly to the collapse. Major failure modes in the analysis were dominated by the helical winding angles. The finite element analysis shows global buckling modes with four waves in the hoop direction.