The arbitrarily and the periodically laminated elastic hollow sphere: exact solutions and homogenization

Summary

The aim of this paper is (1) to develop a rational method for the analysis of an arbitrarily laminated elastic, isotropic or transversely isotropic hollow sphere under internal and/or external pressure, (2) to solve the problem of a periodically layered sphere consisting of many equal groups of n different thin layers. The transfer matrix method is used, and exact closed-form solutions are worked out, supplemented by a numerical example. It turns out that by means of the proposed homogenization an originally (periodically) inhomogeneous isotropic sphere is replaced by a homogeneous anisotropic one belonging to the type of spherical symmetric anisotropy.