Buckling of axially compressed joined lattice-core sandwich conical-cylindrical shells

The present paper investigates the buckling behavior of the sandwich-joined conical-cylindrical shells with geodesic lattice cores using analytical and numerical approaches. Using a smeared stiffener technique, the grid structure is transformed to an equivalent composite layer. To achieve the overall stiffness of the sandwich shell, the stiffness of the stiffeners should be superimposed by the stiffness of the shells. The governing equations are formulated based on the first shear deformation theory (FSDT). For extracting the buckling loads, the power series technique has been used. To corroborate the analytical results, a finite element model is provided. The comparisons indicate satisfactory agreement between the two approaches. Moreover, the effect of stiffeners and skin parameters are investigated. The results obtained are new and can be used for future studies.