Instability of eccentrically stiffened functionally graded truncated conical shells under mechanical loads

This paper is concerned with the mechanical buckling load of an eccentrically stiffened truncated conical shells made of functionally graded materials and subjected to axial compressive load and external uniform pressure by analytical method. Shells are reinforced by stringers and rings. The change of spacing between stringers in the meridional direction is taken into account. Material properties of shell are graded in the thickness direction according to a volume fraction power-law distribution. The equilibrium and linearized stability equations for stiffened shells are derived based on the classical shell theory and smeared stiffeners technique. The resulting equations which they are the couple set of three variable coefficient partial differential equations in terms of displacement components are investigated by Galerkin method and the closed-form expression for determining the buckling load is obtained. The effects of stiffeners, material and dimensional parameters are analyzed in detail. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.