Buckling of sandwich cylindrical shells with shear deformable core through nondimensional parameters

This paper presents the derivation of nondimensional buckling equations of sandwich cylindrical shells made of composite facesheets with a shear deformable core. The procedure yields an analytical solution in terms of a series of nondimensional parameters for the axial buckling load investigating the influence of the core transverse shear. The developed equations and the nondimensional parameters are used to study the buckling response of different shells, and the calculated buckling loads are compared to the buckling values obtained by neglecting the transverse shear. Graphs and tables are presented to show the effects of the nondimensional parameters on the nondimensional buckling load. The results are verified by finite element analyses using the commercial code Abaqus.