Nonlinear Bending of Laminated Composite Skewed Singly Curved Stiffened Shell Roofs

Abstract

The review of literature confirms that there is dearth of research studies on relative bending performances of composite skewed stiffened cylindrical roofs. This paper works on this area using a C0 nonlinear FE code. The isoparametric code combines von-Karman strains with constant shear strain and eight noded elements. The reduced integration technique is adopted to obtain the element matrices and the global ones are achieved by combining the element matrices with due consideration to the shell geometry. The correctness of the approach is confirmed through solutions of benchmark problems. The nonlinear deflections and stress resultants of transversely loaded shells are reported for varying skew angles, laminations, and stiffener numbers and orientations. The post-processing of results includes critical discussions to suggest practical application recommendations to practicing engineers which also involve the serviceability criterion. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2025.