Buckling of thin shells: an overview

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silo pressures (EN 19914 2003) will, at last, provide a standard that provides a relatively realistic representation of eccentric discharge pressures. Much further work is urgently needed on the stress distributions and buckling conditions associated with unsymmetrical silo pressures and eccentric discharge. Cylinders with local geometric disturbances or subject to local loads Systematic disturbances to the geometry Local disturbances to the simple geometry of an axially compressed cylinder have been explored in many recent studies. Cylindrical shells with cutouts or holes under axial compression have been extensively explored (Tennyson 1968; Almroth and Holmes 1972; Almroth et al. 1973; Starnes 1974; Montague and Horne 1981; Miller 1982; Toda 1983; Kndel and Schulz 1985; Allen et al. 1990; Velickov and Schmidt 1998). Some design procedures have been formulated (Eggwertz and Samuelson 1991a; Samuelson and Eggwertz 1992). The effect of a local vertical stiffener (Eggwertz and Samuelson 1991b), and of single or multiple localised deep dents caused by collision damage (Krishnakumar and Foster 1991a,b) have also been addressed. Local and general unsymmetrical loads Early studies of the buckling of cylinders subject to non-uniform external pressure were carried out by Almroth (1962), Weingarten (1962) and Uemura and Morita (1971). More recent investigations of cylinders under non-uniform or partial external pressure were undertaken by Wei and Shun (1988), Chiba et al. (1989), Ramm and Butcher (1991) and Ansourian and Sengupta (1994). The latter study considered external pressures that are circumferentially non-uniform but longitudinally uniform. For this case, they derived a simple design formula from the nite element predictions. The effect of small local radial loads on the buckling strength under axial compression has also been explored by Samuelson (1985, 1991b). A signicant number of studies have examined stability problems in horizontal storage vessels and some simple design methods have been developed (Saal 1982; Tooth and Susatijo 1983; Krupka 1987, 1991a,b; Ansourian and Sengupta 1993).

Rings and shell junctions

Ring stiffeners Ring stiffeners are often an integral part of a shell structure. These are used both as stiffening elements to give greater buckling resistance (especially under external pressure) and as strengthening elements at shell junctions. The ring itself is also susceptible to buckling failure.