Buckling of Open Cylindrical Shells with Torsionally Stiff Rectangular Edge Stiffeners

Abstract

The bifurcation strength of open cylindrical shells with torsionally very stiff edge stiffeners of rectangular cross section subject to uniform axial load is determined analytically using Donnell's simplified equations. A deflection function with arbitrary undetermined coefficients satisfying the end conditions is assumed. The stress resultants are derived in terms of these coefficients. These stress resultants and the deflections of the shell are made to satisfy the assumed boundary conditions along the longitudinal edges. The resulting determinant of the equations is set equal to zero in order to obtain the critical buckling stress. The limited results obtained in this paper indicates an interesting phenomena that the critical buckling stress of a shell with a shallow edge stiffener is well above the critical buckling stress of a shell with free edges, whereas the buckling of a shell with moderate depth edge stiffeners in a narrow region is only slightly above the critical buckling stress of a shell with free edges.