Abstract
An elastic nonlinear Ritz analysis is used to study the buckling behavior of axially loaded imperfect fiber reinforced polymeric cylindrical shells. Extensive parameter studies demonstrate the existence of a well-defined lower bound to buckling loads and the dominance of characteristic incremental deformation modes as this lower bound is approached. It is shown that even for the fiber reinforced polymeric composite shells as well as for the isotropic shell the reduced stiffness method provides reliable estimates of the lower bounds to buckling loads and consequently an important basis for design.
