Thin-walled shells are used in a multitude of load-bearing structural parts in civil engineering structures and in the aerospace, marine and automotive industries. This wide range of practical applications demands a fundamental understanding of their deformation, vibration, static and dynamic stability strength and reliability. Although a great deal of work has been done on metal shells, for thin-walled composite shells a great deal of these questions were unresolved. This monograph focuses on these problems. Its basic theme is the question of how to connect the problems of deformation, buckling and failure, usually treated separately, and to demonstrate their mutual interaction on some examples of dynamically loaded composite cylindrical shells. The book is arranged in six chapters concentrating on the following areas: non-linear theory of composite shells; non-linear vibrations; static and dynamic buckling; transient deformation under short-time impulsive and impact loads and strength and failure predictions. Each chapter is prefaced by an extensive survey of the most important works published on each area.
Since this is a translation of a Russian work many of these references are to Russian works not available in English and this means that this book will be a useful guideline for English-speaking scientists wanting to know more about the state-of-the-art in Russian research on non-linear shell theory. In addition, it will be of value to all materials scientists concerned with the use and behaviour of composite materials in structural applications.