Experimental and numerical study of the buckling of semi-cylindrical composite lattice

Composite lattice structures, due to their advantages such as high strength, light weight and resistance to corrosion are recently employed in various industrial applications including aerospace and marine structures. These structures are usually composed of two major parts: the shell and the lattice structure. The lattice part is made of a system of Helical, Hoop or axial ribs. During loading, the loads are transferred to the ribs and the ribs distribute the loads throughout the structure. In the present paper, first the fabrication of the semi-cylindrical lattice structure is explained. Then, the buckling behavior of the semi- cylindrical lattice structure is investigated using the ABAQUS finite element software. The effect of various parameters such as the thickness and ply angles in the shell laminate were studied. Moreover, the effect of rib parameters such as different patterns and the rib thicknesses were obtained by finite element analysis. In addition, in order to validate the results, a comparison between the experimental and finite element results was performed.