Effect of penetrated crack on compressive buckling performance of composite cylindrical shells with an open hole

In order to solve the problem of cracking during the manufacture process of composite cylindrical shells as well as provide a reference for composite cylindrical shell structural design and quality control, finite element method was used to analyze the compression buckling performance of composite cylindrical shells with penetrated cracks. The result indicates that, for composite cylindrical shells with 45° cracks, the buckling strength decreases gently with the increasing of crack when the crack length is shorter than 130 mm, while it drops sharply when crack length is longer than 130 mm. For composite cylindrical shells with 164 mm cracks, the buckling strength reduces with the direction angle increasing. The impact level of crack to the buckling strength is essentially determined by the influence level of crack to the load path.