A State-Space-Based Stress Analysis of a Multilayered Spherical Shell With Spherical Isotropy

Abstract

This paper presents an exact static stress analysis of a multilayered elastic spherical shell (hollow sphere) completely based on three-dimensional elasticity for spherical isotropy. Two independent state equations are derived after introducing three displacement functions and two stress functions. In particular, a variable substitution technique is used to derive the state equations with constant coefficients. Matrix theory is then employed to obtain the relationships between the state variables at the upper and lower surfaces of each lamina. By virtue of the continuity conditions between two adjacent layers, a second-order linear algebraic equation and a fourth-order one about the boundary variables at the inner and outer surfaces of a multilayered spherical shell are obtained. Numerical examples are presented to show the effectiveness of the present method.