Abstract: By adopting the energy method, a new method to calculate the stability of the composite shell of revolution is presented. This method takes the influence of nonlinear prebuckling deformations and stresses on the buckling of the shell into account. The relationships between the prebuckling deformations and strains are calculated by nonlinear Kármán equations. The numerical method is used to calculate the energy of the total system. The nonlinear equations are solved by combining gradient method and amendatory Newton iterative method. The computer program is also developed. An example is given to demonstrate the accuracy of the method presented.

Key words: composite material, rotational shell, stability, nonlinear