Elastic-Plastic Collapse of Axially Compressed Cylindrical Shells: A Brief Survey With Particular-Application to Ring-Stiffened Cylindrical Shells With Reinforced Openings (Survey Paper)

Abstract

A brief survey of plastic buckling of axially compressed cylindrical shells is given. Results of nonlinear finite element analyses of several axially compressed, ring-stiffened, steel, cylindrical shells are presented, including comparisons with tests conducted at Chicago Bridge and Iron Co. and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Some of the LANL specimens with radius-to-thickness ratio of about 450 have reinforced circular openings that cut across various numbers of ring stiffeners. These cylindrical shells are loaded by enforced axial displacement applied to thick aluminum end plates halfway between the axis of revolution and the shell wall. Measured imperfections are included in the analysis of one ring-stiffened specimen without any cutout. Inclusion of the imperfection field reduces the predicted collapse load by only eight percent. Reinforced openings that cut one or two or three rings reduce the collapse load by 14, 21 and 22 percent, respectively. Agreement between test and theory for the nonuniformly compressed LANL specimens is within 14 percent, even with initial imperfections neglected in the analysis.