Characteristics of Buckling and Ultimate Strength and Collapse Behaviour of Cylindrically Curved Plates Subjected to Axial Compression

Abstract

In the present paper, to clarify and examine the fundamental buckling behaviours of cylindrically curved plates subjected to axial loading, a series of elastic and elasto-plastic large deflection analyses as well as elastic eigen buckling analysis are performed together with the comparisons with the buckling behaviours of circular cylinder. On the basis of the numerical results, the effects of curvature, magnitude of initial imperfection, slenderness ratio and aspect ratio on the characteristics of the buckling and post buckling collapse behavior of cylindrically curved plates and circular cylinders under axial compression are discussed. The buckling strength and ultimate strength formulae of the cylindrically curved plate are empirically derived based on the FEM series analysis by curve fitting using least square method. The validity of the ultimate strength formulations developed in this study has to some extent been verified through comparison with nonlinear numerical solutions.