Study on bi-stable behaviors of un-stressed thin cylindrical shells based on the extremal principle

Bi-stable structure can be stable in both its extended and coiled forms. For the un-stressed thin cylindrical shell, the strain energy expressions are deduced by using a theoretical model in terms of only two parameters. Based on the principle of minimum potential energy, the bi-stable behaviors of the cylindrical shells are investigated. The results indicate that the isotropic cylindrical shell does not have the second stable configuration and laminated cylindrical shells with symmetric or antisymmetric layup of fibers have the second stable state under some confined conditions. In the case of antisymmetric laminated cylindrical shell, the analytical expressions of the stability are derived based on the extremal principle, and the shell can achieve a compact coiled configuration without twist deformation in its second stable state. In the case of symmetric laminated cylindrical shell, the explicit solutions for the stability conditions cannot be deduced. Numerical results show that stable configuration of symmetric shell is difficult to achieve and symmetric shell has twist deformation in its second stable form. In addition, the roll-up radii of the antisymmetric laminated cylindrical shells are calculated using the finite element package ABAQUS. The results show that the value of the roll-up radii is larger from FE simulation than from theoretical analysis. By and large, the predicted roll-up radii of the cylindrical shells using ABAQUS agree well with the theoretical results.