Differential Cubature Method for Static Solution of Laminated Shells of Revolution with Mixed Boundary Conditions

Abstract

The bending analysis of laminated shells of revolution, such as spherical, conical and cylindrical panels, is carried out utilizing the differential cubature method (DCM). To do so, a general software based on the DCM is developed which can tackle shells of revolution with symmetric and unsymmetric lamination sequence. Analysis of shells with general Loading and various combinations of clamped, simply supported, free and mixed boundary condition, may be carried out having acceptable accuracy. Using first order shear deformation theory, fifteen first order partial differential equations are obtained which contain fifteen unknowns in terms of displacements, rotations, moments and forces. Utilizing all of these equations results in the capability of the method to deal with any kinds of boundary conditions. Comparison of the results obtained by the DCM, shows very good agreement with the results of other numerical and analytical methods, while having less computational effort.