The important role of geometric imperfections on the decrease of the buckling load for thin-walled cylinders had been recognized already by the first authors investigating the theoretical approaches on this topic. However, there are currently no closed-form solutions to take imperfections into account already during the early design phases, forcing the analysts to use lower-bound methods to calculate the required knock-down factors (KDF). Lower-bound methods such as the empirical NASA SP-8007 guideline are commonly used in the aerospace and space industries, while the approaches based on the Reduced Stiffness Method (RSM) have been used mostly in the civil engineering field. Since 1970s a considerable number of experimental and numerical investigations have been conducted to develop new stochastic and deterministic methods for calculating less conservative KDFs. Among the deterministic approaches, the single perturbation load approach (SPLA), proposed by Huhne, will be further investigated for axially compressed fiber composite cylindrical shells and compared with four other methods commonly used to create geometric imperfections: linear buckling mode-shaped, geometric dimples, axisymmetric imperfections and measured geometric imperfections from test articles. The finite element method using static analysis with artificial damping is used to simulate the displacement controlled compression tests up to the post-buckled range of loading. The implementation of each method is explained in details and the different KDFs obtained are compared. The study is part of the European Union (EU) project DESICOS, whose aim is to combine stochastic and deterministic approaches to develop less conservative guidelines for the design of imperfection sensitive structures.

Geometric imperfections and lower-bound methods used to calculate knock-down factors for axially compressed composite cylindrical shells

Buckling of quasi-perfect cylindrical shell under axial compression: A combined experimental and numerical investigation

Buckling under the external pressure of cylindrical shells with variable thickness

Linear eigenvalue analysis of cracked cylindrical shells under combined internal pressure and axial compression is carried out to study the effect of crack type, size and orientation on the buckling behavior of cylindrical thin shells. Two types of crack are considered; through crack and thumbnail crack. Our calculations indicate that depending on the crack type, length, orientation and the internal pressure, local buckling may precede the global buckling of the cylindrical shell. The internal pressure, in general, increases the buckling load associated with the global buckling mode of the cylindrical shells. In contrast, the effect of internal pressure on buckling loads associated with the local buckling modes of the cylindrical shell depends mainly on the crack orientation. For cylindrical shells with relatively long axial crack, buckling loads associated with local buckling modes of the cylindrical shell reduce drastically on increasing the shell internal pressure. In contrast, the internal pressure has the stabilizing effect against the local buckling for circumferentially cracked cylindrical shells. A critical crack length for each crack orientation and loading condition is defined as the shortest crack causing the local buckling to precede the global buckling of the cylindrical shell. Some insight into the effect of internal pressure on this critical crack length is provided.

Buckling of cracked cylindrical thin shells under combined internal pressure and axial compression

Experimental validation of cylindrical shells under axial compression for improved knockdown factors

The effect of localized axisymmetric initial imperfections on the critical load of elastic cylindrical shells subjected to axial compression is studied through analytical modeling. Some classical results regarding sensitivity of shell buckling strength with respect to distributed defects having axisymmetric or asymmetric forms are recalled. Special emphasis is placed after that on the more severe case of localized defects satisfying axial symmetry by displaying an analytical solution to the Von Karman–Donnell shell equations under specific boundary conditions. The obtained results show that the critical load varies very much with the geometrical parameters of the localized defect. These variations are not monotonic in general. They indicate, however, a clear reduction of the shell critical load for some defects recognized as the most hazardous isolated ones. Reduction of the critical load is found to reach a level which is up to two times lower than that predicted by general distributed defects.

M. Bezzazi

Papers

Buckling of elastic cylindrical shells considering the effect of localized axisymmetric imperfections