Reduced Stiffness Criteria for the Safe Buckling Design of Thin Shells and its Numerical Validation

Abstract

Thin metallic shells have long been adopted as major structural components in weight-sensitive applications, especially in marine engineering. Imperfection sensitive buckling is a critical design factor when these structures are loaded in compression. Traditional experimental design method depends on deriving lower bounds to the scatter of large sets of test results. This paper aims to present an analytical approach, the so-called reduced stiffness method (RSM) to the lower-bound buckling of thin-metallic shells. The validity of the RSM for the prediction of the safe lower bounds to the buckling of thin shells is verified through carefully controlled finite element analysis and the comparative studies confirm the reliability of the RSM.