• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.375-387
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• 2014

The purpose of this paper is to propose a method for evaluation of varying stiffness coefficients of tailored conical shells (TCS). Furthermore, a comparison between buckling loads of these shells under axial load with the different fiber path is performed. A circular truncated conical shell subjected to axial compression is taken into account. Three different theoretical path containing geodesic path, constant curvature path and constant angle path has been considered to describe the angle variation along the cone length, along cone generator of a conical shell are offered. In the TCS with the arbitrary fiber path, the thickness and the ply orientation are assumed to be functions of the shell coordinates and influencing stiffness coefficients of the structure. The stiffness coefficients and the buckling loads of shells are calculated basing on classical shells theory (CST) and using finite-element analysis (FEA) software. The obtained results for TCS with arbitrary fiber path, thickness and ply orientation are derived as functions of shell longitudinal coordinate and influencing stiffness coefficients of structures. Furthermore, the buckling loads based on fiber path and ply orientation at the start of tailored fiber get to be different. The extent of difference for tailored fiber with start angle lower than 20 degrees is not significant. The results in this paper show that using tailored fiber placement could be applied for producing conical shells in order to have greater buckling strengths and lower weight. This work demonstrates the use of fiber path definitions for calculated stiffness coefficients and buckling loads of conical shells.