Abstract—A study on a Circular cylindrical thin-walled shell failure made of GRP composite subjected to static internal and external pressure was carried out. The results were acquired using analytical and FEM simulation approaches for various volumetric fiber fractions. Fiber breakage, matrix breakage, interlaminate shear deformation, delamination shear deformation and micro buckling failure were investigated employing maximum failure criteria against internal and external pressure. One-ply cylindrical shell with fiber angle orientation of 0 degree was modeled in ABAQUS finite element simulation an d the result was varied using analytical approaches. Moreover, the pressure fluctuations for various volumetric fiber fraction were quadratic according to plotted graphs. Meanwhile, MATLAB software was used for theoretical analysis. The comparison of two approaches was proved to be accurate. Subsequently, failure strength of various laminated GFRP cylindrical shell with different fiber angle orientations at each ply was studied for diverse volumetric fiber fraction factor s. Stacking sequence, fiber angle orientations were mainly effective on failure strength.

Index Terms—Volumetric fiber fraction factor, internal and external pressure, GFRP composite cylindrical shell, failure strength, theoretical analysis, finite element simulation.

S. Gohari and M. Mostakhdemin Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, UTM Skudai, Malaysia (email:soheil.gohari7@gmail.com).
A. Golshan is with Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University Putra Malaysia, UPM Selangor, Malaysia.
F. Mozafari is with Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, UTM Skudai, Malaysia.
A. Momenzadeh is with Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, UTM Skudai, Malaysia.

Cite: S. Gohari, A. Golshan, M. Mostakhdemin, F. Mozafari, and A. Momenzadeh, "Failure Strength of Thin-walled Cylindrical GFRP Composite Shell against Static Internal and External Pressure for various Volumetric Fiber Fraction," International Journal of Applied Physics and Mathematics  vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 111-116, 2012.