Stability and Postcritical Behavior of Cylindrical Composite Shells with Local Imperfections Under External Pressure

An approach to solving the problem of the nonlinear deformation of orthotropic cylindrical shells is proposed. On the surface of the shell, there is a local deflection bounded by segments of the coordinate lines. The Timoshenko–Mindlin shell theory, the Byskov–Hatchinson asymptotic method, and the continuous continuation method for solving nonlinear algebraic equations are used. To determine the critical loads and deformation paths, it is necessary to estimate the number of interacting modes sufficient to achieve satisfactory accuracy. Examples of analyzing composite shells with an initial local deflection of positive or negative amplitude are given