Post-Buckling Behaviour and Buckling Strength of the Circular Cylinder Under Axial Compression

Abstract

Cylindrical shells are often used in the construction of ship and land-based structures such as deck plating with a camber, side shell plating for fore and aft part pipes, as well as storage tanks. It has been believed that such curved shells can be modeled fundamentally as a part of the cylinder under axial compression. From the estimations made based on cylindrical models, it is known that in general, curvature increases the buckling strength of a curved shell when subjected to axial compression, and the same curvature is also expected to increase the overall strength. A series of elastic large deflection analyses were conducted in order to clarify the fundamentals observed in the buckling and post-buckling behaviour of circular cylinders under axial compression. In the present paper, an FE-series analysis has been performed based on the elastic large deflection behaviour, and the effect of parameters has been clarified. The ultimate strength behavior of the circular cylinder was found to be significantly influenced by both the initial deflection and the FE-modeling method.