Hemispherical shell bulkheads are frequently used as part of pressure vessel structures in aerospace engineering, such as the common bulkhead of a propellant tank. For these thin-shell bulkheads, there is a significant difference between the theoretic...
Hemispherical shell bulkheads are frequently used as part of pressure vessel structures in aerospace engineering, such as the common bulkhead of a propellant tank. For these thin-shell bulkheads, there is a significant difference between the theoretical buckling strength and the buckling strength obtained in actual experiments. Therefore, while measuring the buckling strength of a structure through experiments is ideal, this method is time-consuming and cost-intensive.
For this reason, various methods have been studied to derive the lower limit of the Knockdown Factor (KDF), which is the ratio of the theoretical buckling strength to the actual buckling strength of a structure, through simulation of initial defects without relying on measurements. Among them, the Localized Reduced Stiffness Method (LRSM) is one that derives the actual buckling strength by reducing the stiffness of a portion of the shell structure to resemble an actual defect.
This study examined how the KDF changes according to each ply angle while increasing the area of stiffness reduction at a constant rate using LRSM on a hemispherical common bulkhead with a CFRP laminated structure, and examined the differences from an isotropic structure. As a result, the unidirectional and orthogonal lamination showed resistance to defects with a gradual decrease in KDF, and showed a tendency to continuously decrease without convergence.
Therefore, in this case, it is more appropriate to derive the lower limit of KDF using the Reduced Stiffness Method (RSM) rather than the LRSM. The KDF of the 4-direction lamination rapidly decreased before converging to a specific value as the isotopic material. Therefore, it is reasonable to derive a lower bound for the KDF using LRSM. Furthermore, it was confirmed that orthogonal lamination, which has high defect resistance, is not affected by multiple defects, and local stiffness reduction does not affect the buckling of the entire structure, is most suitable for application to hemispherical shell structures subjected to uniform surface pressure, such as common bulkhead structures.