Effect of Large Deflections and Initial Imperfections on the Buckling of Cylindrical Shells Subject to Hydrostatic Pressure

Abstract

Numerous treatments of the elastic buckling of thin cylinders under various loadings and with various boundary conditions exist in the literature. In general, those analyses which involve classical small deflection shell theory predict higher buckling loads than actually found during test. In an effort to explain the discrepancy between these theoretical values and experiment, Donnell in 1934 introduced the concept of large deflections together with the consideration of initial deviations from perfect shape. This approach has been employed by Donnell and Wan to investigate the phenomena of buckling of cylinders subject to axial compression and by Loo to study torsional buckling. Both of these studies yielded results that are in substantial agreement with experiment. In this paper the buckling of a cylinder subjected to hydrostatic pressure is analyzed from the standpoint of large deflections together with initial imperfections because of the marked discrepancy between small deformation theory and test for this type of loading. The relations derived are in line with test results.