Fabrication Procedure and buckling Behavior of Composite Lattice Cylindrical Shells Under Axial Loading

Composite lattice structures are known for their high specific strength and stiffness under compressive loading conditions. The manufacturing process is one of the main concerns for cylindrical grid structures. In this paper, a new and optimized method for composite lattice cylindrical shell production is studied, which finally lead to producing qualitative specimens without any mold destruction. For this purpose, a multi-piece cylindrical mold, which was made of poly-ethylene, is designed. Specimens are made of glass/epoxy composite and produced by a filament winding machine. Also, different aspects of manufacturing process including tooling and other processing aspects are presented in this paper. Further, the buckling behavior of the structure under axial compression tests is studied. Finally, the results are compared with the finite element model made by ABAQUS FE code. The detailed analysis is presented in full length paper.