Thermally induced dynamic instability of laminated composite conical shells

Thermally induced dynamic instability of laminated composite conical shells is investigated by means of a perturbation method. The laminated composite conical shells are subjected to static and periodic thermal loads. The linear instability approach is adopted in the present study. A set of initial membrane stresses due to the elevated temperature field is assumed to exist just before the instability occurs. The formulation begins with three-dimensional equations of motion in terms of incremental stresses perturbed from the state of neutral equilibrium. After proper nondimensionalization, asymptotic expansion and successive integration, we obtain recursive sets of differential equations at various levels. The method of multiple scales is used to eliminate the secular terms and make an asymptotic expansion feasible. Using the method of differential quadrature and Bolotin’s method, and imposing the orthonormality and solvability conditions on the present asymptotic formulation, we determine the boundary frequencies of dynamic instability regions for various orders in a consistent and hierarchical manner. The principal instability regions of cross-ply conical shells with simply supported–simply supported boundary conditions are studied to demonstrate the performance of the present asymptotic theory