Influence of material nonlinearity on the buckling resistance of stainless steel shells

Abstract

One of the greatest challenges in the design of shell structures made of stainless steel compared to those made of carbon steel is the meaningful consideration of the nonlinear stress-strain behaviour of stainless steels which has a significant influence on the buckling behaviour of axially compressed shells in the medium slenderness range and lead to lower buckling strengths. A detailed description of the actual material behaviour of stainless steels is given by the material model developed by Arrayago, Real and Gardner on the basis of the by Rasmussen modified two stage Ramberg-Osgood material model. One of the parameters of which the model consists is the exponent n, which describes the nonlinear behaviour just before the 0.2% proof stress. This exponent is of great importance for the buckling behaviour of axially loaded shell structures of medium slenderness. For this reason, a thorough numerical parametric study has been conducted in order to evaluate the effect of the nonlinear material behaviour described by the exponent n on the buckling resistance of austenitic, duplex, and ferritic stainless steel shells. The numerical model has been validated by experimental results of axially compressed cylindrical shells conducted in the frame of the European RFCS-research project BiogaSS.