Maximizing buckling load of elliptical composite cylinders using lamination parameters

•Buckling of elliptic cylinders with varied slenderness and eccentricity is studied.•Fast performance overviews are attained for FRP components through shell analyses.•Lamination parameters are used to express the stiffness properties in compact form.•The utilized methods provide design bases for optimizing FRP structural components. Structural members made of fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP) attract increasing attention in the development of novel architectural systems that challenge the standard design methodologies. Cylindrical surfaces constitute one of the typical geometric sets obtained with the FRP component fabrication. This paper explores the influences of two geometric parameters on the buckling performance of elliptical cylinders: inverse slenderness (ratio of minimum diameter to height) and eccentricity (ratio of radii along semi-axes). The overall stiffness properties are defined using lamination parameters. This analysis method eliminates the dependency of optimal solutions on the initial assumptions regarding the laminate configuration, which needs to be explicitly described in multi-layer modeling. Finite element analyses are utilized to compute buckling loads of the cylinders under axial compression force and bi-axial bending moments. The optimal lamination parameters and buckling stresses are determined for various parameters, and the lamination parameters corresponding to the optimal and simple [±45°] angle-ply design points are presented in the lamination parameter plane via Miki's diagram. The results reveal the level of performance that can be achieved by a specific geometry and provide guidelines for the optimal design of elliptical laminated cylinders against buckling.