Boundary layer theory for the buckling and postbuckling of an anisotropic laminated cylindrical shell, Part II: Prediction under external pressure

A boundary layer theory for the buckling and postbuckling of anisotropic laminated thin shells is extended to the loading case of external pressure. A singular perturbation technique is employed to determine the buckling pressure and postbuckling equilibrium paths. The numerical illustrations concern the postbuckling behavior of pressure-loaded, perfect and imperfect, anisotropic laminated cylindrical shells with different values of shell parameters and stacking sequence. The new finding is that there exists a circumferential stress along with an associate shear stress and twisting when the anisotropic shell is subjected to lateral pressure, and all the results published previously need to be re-examined. The results confirm that the effect of the boundary layer on the solution of a pressurized shell is of the order ε3/2ε3/2. The postbuckling equilibrium path is stable for the moderately long shell under external pressure and the shell structure is virtually imperfection-insensitive, whereas the postbuckling equilibrium path is unstable for a very short cylindrical shell under the same loading case.