Elastic stability of biaxially loaded longitudinally stiffened composite structures.

A linear analysis method is presented for the elastic stability of structures of uniform cross section, that may be idealized as an assemblage of laminated plate-strips, flat and curved, and beams. Each plate-strip and beam covers the entire length of the structure and is simply supported on the edges normal to the longitudinal axis. Arbitrary boundary conditions may be specified on any external longitudinal side of plate-strips. The structure or selected plate-strips may be loaded in any desired combination of inplane biaxial loads. The analysis simultaneously considers all modes of instability and is applicable for the buckling of laminated composite structures. Some numerical results are presented to indicate possible applications.