Abstract

To study the hydro-static pressure carrying capability of a sandwich composite pressure shell with ring ribs, and explore a structure design method, we obtain an empirical formula of the ring rib segments critical support stiffness, which is defined as Dcr, via finite element simulation and theoretical analysis method. It was shown that, Dcr is of great significance in designing the sandwich composite pressure shell structure. On this basis, the parameters were dimensionless and the empirical formula was obtained by fitting serious independent simulated results. The fitting error of the empirical formula is within 2%. This fitting method has a certain theoretical value for the theoretical research of sandwich composite pressure shell structure. The obtained results are useful for desinging the bearing capacity of novel structure.