Plastic Buckling Of Shells Research Articles

Plastic Buckling of Shells Under Cyclic Loading

The effects of cyclic strain accumulation or cyclic creep on the stability of thin cylindrical shells subjected to various combinations of repeated axial loading and repeated lateral pressure are examined. A constitutive model is employed to describe cyclic strain accumulation in geometrically-perfect cylindrical shells under uniform distributions of stress and the critical states of stress for elastic-plastic buckling or bifurcation-of-equilibrium are then established for such shells under combined axial compression and external pressure. Subsequent analyses for the cases of repeated lateral pressure and cyclic hydrostatic pressure suggest that strain accumulation can have a progressive destabilizing effect so that buckling may eventually occur after a certain number of cycles of loading.