CHAPTER 8 - Experimental Investigation of Shells

Abstract

The investigation of thin shells has been purely on a theoretical basis, and it is now of importance to try and establish the validity of the theories propounded, by comparing their correlation with experimental results. This chapter discusses a few tests on model shells that have been conducted for this purpose. Tests on full-scale shells are of necessity few, as the loading of such structures is difficult and costly. Experimental investigators of shells, therefore, usually resort to small-scale tests, and the investigations described in this chapter are of this type. In attempting to verify these theories by experimental tests, it would be natural to construct the model shells using such perfectly elastic materials. This would provide the closest correlation between theoretical and experimental stresses. As shells in practice are normally designed on an elastic basis and yet are constructed from materials that are not perfectly elastic, it is also necessary to determine the validity of the elastic theory in these cases.