Abstract: It is of great significance and difficulty to ensure the stability of the composite corrugated panels in the design of aircraft wing structures. The main purpose of this paper is to establish a numerical method for the buckling of composite corrugated panel under shear loads via experiments and computations. The buckling and failure loads are examined by experiments for corrugated panels with three different wave lengths. Then, the buckling loads for eight different wave lengths are explored by the engineering method and the finite element method and are compared with experimental data. Finally the correction factors for the computational buckling loads are proposed. Results reveal that compared with experimental data, the buckling loads are greater than the experimental loads with the engineering method, while smaller with the finite element method. The results also show the longer the wave length is, the bigger the error is for the computational buckling loads. In addition, the results show that the computational buckling loads can be approximated to experimental loads by the proposed correction factors, which means that the correction factors are feasible and efficient.

Key words: composite materials, corrugated panel, shear loads, finite element model, buckling