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In this paper, simulation and analysis of thin steel cylindrical shells of various lengths and diameters and thickness with triangular cutouts have been studied. In this research buckling and post-buckling analyses were carried out using the finite element method by ABAQUS software. Moreover, the effect of cutout position and the length-to-diameter (L/D) and diameter-to-thickness (D/t) ratios on the buckling and post-buckling behavior of cylindrical shells have been investigated. In this work the cylindrical shells used for this study were made of mild steel and their mechanical properties were determined using servo hydraulic machine. Then buckling tests were performed using a servo hydraulic machine. In order to numerical analyze the buckling subject to axial load similar to what was done in the experiments; a displacement was applied to the center of the upper of the specimens. The results of experimental tests were compared to the results of the finite element method. A very good correlation was observed between numerical simulation and experimental result.

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Due to necessary of existence of access opening, inspection paths, installation, entrance and exit doors, etc, creation of cutouts on the vessel structure is unavoidable. On the other hand, composite structures and structural analysis is complex and create cutout and imperfection structure increase these complexity. The aim of this research is to determine the mechanical response of three cutout positions on composite pressure vessels under 30 bar external pressure, so that no buckling and fracture failure occurs. Also, the optimum composite vessel thickness for this condition and cutout effect has been determined in this study. The studied vessels are made from E-Glass fiber and Epoxy matrix. Finite element simulation used to investigate the parameters effect. For this reason, commercial ABAQUS software and linear and non-linear analysis carried out to examine the parameters. To evaluate the simulation results, two composite vessels manufactured and fractured under external pressure. Moreover, the final vessel with three cutouts tested under 30 bar external pressure. The concluded results show that the optimum thickness was 16 mm for vessel with three cutouts and create the cutouts led to decrease buckling pressure. Also, with increasing cutout size the percent of buckling pressure increased.

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One of the designers concerns is structural failure as a result of stress concentration in the geometrical discontinuities. Stress concentration factor in the presence of cutout, is a key parameter in reducing the structural load-bearing capacity. In the analysis of perforated isotropic plates, the effective parameters on stress distribution around cutouts are the cutout geometry, curvature radius of cutout corner, rotation angle of cutout and load angle. In this study, using PSO method it has been tried to introduce the optimum parameters to achieve the minimum amount of stress around the n-sided cutouts in isotropic plates under uniaxial tension. In this paper, an analytical method has been used to calculate the stress around cutouts with different shapes. According to this method, by using the conformal mapping, Muskhelishvili’s complex variable method which is only for circular and elliptical cutouts, has been developed for the other cutouts. The results presented in this case shows that by choosing the appropriate shape of cutout and the optimal effective parameters, stress concentration factor can be significantly reduced and lowest stress concentration factor rather than amount of stress concentration corresponding to circular hole can be achieved.

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In this research, softening and ratcheting behavior of SS304L thin-walled shells under cyclic pure bending load were investigated. Experimental tests were carried out by a servo-hydraulic INSTRON 8802 machine under force-control and displacement-control conditions and the effect of different parameters such as mean force, force amplitude, length of the shells existence and position of cutout were examined. Under displacement-control loading, softening behavior was observed and under force-control loading with non-zero mean force, accumulation of plastic deformation or ratcheting phenomena was occurred. Based on experimental results, linear relation was observed between plastic energy and rate of plastic deformation, which shows the rigidity of fixtures used in the experimental tests. It was observed that increase of the force amplitude accompanied with an increase in maximum force and plastic deformation, finally. Also, analyzing the existence of cutout, ratcheting displacement of cylindrical shells with cutout in the middle of shell is higher than that of the shell without cutout and crack propagation occurred in this area. Under displacement-control loading, reaction of thin-walled shells under cyclic pure bending load is divided into four areas, incubation, transition, steady-state and crack propagation.

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This paper aims at optimizing the parameters involved in stress analysis of finite isotropic plates, in order to achieve the least amount of stress around a quadrilateral cutout located in a finite isotropic plate under in- plane loading using a novel Swarm Intelligence optimization technique called Ant lion optimizer. In analysis of finite isotropic plate, the effective parameters on stress distribution around quadrilateral cutouts are cutout bluntness, cutout orientation, plate’s aspect ratio, cutout size and type of loading. In this study, with the assumption of plane stress conditions, analytical solution of Muskhelishvili’s complex variable method and conformal mapping is utilized. The plate is considered to be finite (proportion of cutout side to the longest plate side should be more than 0.2), isotropic and linearly elastic. To calculate the stress function of a finite plate with a quadrilateral cutout, the stress functions in finite plate are determined by superposition of the stress function in infinite plate containing a quadrilateral cutout with stress function in finite plate without any cutout. Using least square boundary collocation method and applying appropriate boundary conditions, unknown coefficients of stress function are obtained. Moreover, the finite element method has been used to check the accuracy of results. The obtained results show that the mentioned parameters have a significant effect on stress distribution around a quadrilateral cutout and that the structure’s load- bearing capacity can be increased by proper selection of these parameters.

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In this paper, axial buckling of a composite cylindrical shell with and without a rectangular cutout is studied based on the first-order shear deformation theory. The equations are derived in a general form and can be converted to Donnell`s, Love`s, and Sanders` theories. To investigate the perforated shell, a physical domain is decomposed into several elements with uniform boundary and loading conditions in each element edges. In each element, the governing equations are discretized in both longitudinal and circumferential directions by the use of generalized differential quadrature method (GDQM). By assembling these discretized relations, a system of algebraic equations is generated. The boundary conditions at the shell and cutout edges, and the compatibility conditions at the interface boundaries of adjacent elements are also discretized by GDQM. Finally, the buckling load is calculated by an eigenvalue solution. To validate the presented method, the results of GDQM are compared with the available ones in the literature and also with ABAQUS finite element model. Then a parametric analysis is performed to investigate the effects of different parameters on the buckling behavior of the shells with and without cutouts. This study illustrates that the shell layup has a great effect on the buckling load of a shell. In addition, the influence of increasing the cutout size is not identical for different layups. However, the buckling behavior is independent of the shell material. Moreover, it was concluded that the shell with a square cutout has higher critical load than the one with a rectangular opening.

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The optimal design of multilayer substrates containing the cutout under compression is very important to achieve maximum buckling resistance in comparison with structural weight, especially in aerospace structures. In this study, buckling and post-buckling behavior of composite laminated plates with orthogonal and symmetrical layup containing the cutout with different diameters has been investigated experimentally, semi-analytically, and numerically. To study the buckling of the composite plate with cutout semi-analytically, a finite strip method is developed. A finite element method was used for numerical analysis. The required material parameters for modeling were obtained from standard tests. The results of the current study show that the size of diameter of cutout does not have considerable effect on elastic rigidity of plate, but the buckling load significantly decreases by increasing cutout diameter. Also, buckling load and elastic rigidity of plate are considerably increased by increasing the number of composite layers. The thickness of plate has more effect on buckling load than the diameter of hole. Studies show that there is a good match between the results of buckling behavior derived from semi-analytical and finite element methods with experimental results.