Light weight structures in the aerospace, mechanical engineering
or civil engineering are on the one hand under compression or
shear loading susceptible for buckling but on the other hand
they have large reserve capacities in the postbuckling region.
In order to save weight in these fields the use of materials
made of Carbon-Fibre-Reinforced-Plastics (CFRP) is increasing.
However, the design and computation of composite structures is
more challenging than using classic materials. Stability, non-
linear computations and degradation have therefore here an
essential relevance. The structural behaviour of stability and
deformations is simulated by nonlinear numerical simulations and
experiments. Figure 1 illustrates the comparison of an
experiment and simulation of a buckled, stringer-stiffened (on
the reverse side) CFRP panel. The institute has in the field of
stability of thin-walled composite structures competence in the
following 4 main topics: Postbuckling behaviour, Imperfection
tolerance, Buckling due to dy