Computerized buckling analysis of shells

MECHANICS OF ELASTIC STABILITY

Editors: H.H.E. Leipholz and G.lE. Oravas

H.H.E. Leipholz, Theory of elasticity. 1974.

ISBN 90-286-0193-7
L. Librescu, Elastostatics and kinetics of anisotropic and heterogeneous
shell-type structures. 1975.
ISBN 90-286-0035-3
C.L. Dym, Stability theory and its application to structural mechanics.
1974.
ISBN 90-286-0094-9
K. Huseyin, Nonlinear theory of elastic stability. 1975.
ISBN 90-286-0344-1
H.H.E. Leipholz, Direct variational methods and eigenvalue problems in
engineering. 1977.
ISBN 90-286-0106-6
K. Huseyin, Vibrations and stability of multiple parameter systems. 1978.
ISBN 90-286-0136-8
H.H.E. Leipholz, Stability of elastic systems. 1980.
ISBN 90-286-0050-7
V.V. Bolotin, Random vibrations of elastic systems. 1984.
ISBN 90-247-2981-5
D. Bushnell, Computerized buckling analysis of shells. 1985.
ISBN 90-247-3099-6
Computerized buckling analysis
of shells
by

D. Bushnell
Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory
3251 Hannover St.
Palo Alto, California 94304
USA

KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS

DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LONDON
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Bushnell, D, (David), 1938-

Computerized buckling analysis of shells.

(Mechanics of elastic stability ; 9)

Bibliography: p.
1. Shells (Engineering)--Data processing. 2. Buckling
(Mechanics)--Data processing. I. Title. II. Series.
TA660.S5B87 1985 624.1'7762 84-27376

ISBN 90-247-3099-6 (this volume)

ISBN 90-247-2743-X (series)

Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers,

P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

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In all other countries, sold and distributed

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ISBN-13:978-94-010-8741-4 e-ISBN-13:978-94-009-5063-4
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-5063-4

Reprinted 1989

All Rights Reserved

© 1989 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical
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retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
To my wife, Kay
Contents

Page

Foreword xiii

1. Descriptions of types of instability and classical buckling problems 1

Introduction 1
Summary of the volume 1
Purpose 7
Why do shells buckle? 7
What is buckling? 8
Various types of bifurcation buckling 10
Capsule of recent progress in buckling analysis 12
Asymptotic analysis 12
General nonlinear analysis 12
Axisymmetric structures 13
Simple examples to illustrate various types of buckling 13
Column buckling 13
Pre buckling solution or fundamental equilibrium path 15
Bifurcation buckling 15
Post-bifurcation stability 17
Loss of stability and imperfections 18
Buckling of plates 18
"Classical" buckling of cylindrical and spherical shells 20
Cylindrical shells under axial compression 20
A caution for novice users of computer programs for buckling 23
Stiffened cylinders under axial compression 24
Cylinders under uniform external pressure or torsion 26
Spherical shells under uniform external pressure 27
Spherical caps 28

2. Nonlinear collapse 30
Summary 30
Elastic-plastic-creep collapse of axially compressed monocoque cylinders 30
No-creep 30
Creep included 33
Creep collapse of ring-stiffened cylinder under external hydrostatic pressure 34
Snap-through of very shallow spherical caps 36
vi

Straight and curved tubes under bending and external pressure 38

Introduction 38
Long tubes and elbows: A survey of work done 39
Elastic models 39
Bending tests on long elastic-plastic straight pipes and elbows 40
Elastic-plastic piping analysis 40
Axisymmetric model of long pipe or elbow-bending problem 42
Simulation of the pipe-bending problem by thermal loading of a torus 42
Collapse and bifurcation buckling moment of a long straight pipe 43
Collapse of a 90° elastic plastic elbow 45
Collapse and bifurcation buckling due to bending of straight elastic pipes of
fmite length 47
Collapse of cylindrical panels and shells with concentrated loads and cutouts 49
Introduction 49
Cylindrical panels and shells with concentrated nOTmalloads 50
Panels 51
Complete cylindrical shells 51
Collapse of axially compressed cylindrical shells with cutouts 53
Rectangular cutouts 53
Circular cutouts 55
Collapse of axially compressed non circular cylinders 57
Axially compressed elliptical cylinder 57
Axially compressed "Pear-shaped" cylinder 59
Axially compressed cylindrical shell with local load path eccentricity 62

3. Bifurcation buckling in which nonuniformity or nonlinearity of the prebuckling state

is important 64
Introduction 64
Summary 64
Bifurcation buckling due to edge effects and localized circumferential compression 66
Bifurcation buckling due to edge effects 66
Cylindrical shell under axial compression 66
Externally pressurized spherical caps with edge rings 67
Buckling of shallow and deep spherical caps 71
Buckling due to localized hoop compression 73
Thermal buckling of cylindrical shells 74
Introduction 74
Buckling of cylinder heated halfway along length 75
Buckling of axisymmetric ally heated clamped cylinder 78
Buckling of an internally pressurized rocket fuel tank 83
Local buckling at a field joint in a large rocket payload shroud 84
Bifurcation buckling of spherical shells under meridional tension combined with
hoop compression 86
Axial load applied uniformly over latitude with finite radius r I 86
Axial load applied at a point 90
Buckling of internally pressurized vessel heads 92
Introduction 92
Cause and characteristics of nonsymmetric bifurcation buckling 94
Difference in elastic behavior of ellipsoidal and tori spherical heads 95
Elastic bifurcation buckling 96
Elastic-plastic bifurcation buckling 99
Conclusions about bifurcation buckling of internally pressurized heads 107
Bifurcation buckling near the axisymmetric collapse load 109
A summary of examples already described 109
Failure of a water tank 110
 vii

An attempt to predict elastic-plastic buckling of the large steel water tower

including fabrication effects 114
Tank configuration and discretized model 114
Welding 115
Mismatch 119
Cold bending 119
Conclusions 121

4. Effect of boundary conditions and eccentric loading 123

Introduction 123
Summary 126
Effect of boundary conditions on buckling of monocoque shells 127
Cylinders subjected to uniform external hydrostatic pressure 127
Cylinders subjected to uniform axial compression 130
Inextensional buckling 131
Simulation of effects of local plastic flow by appropriate constraint conditions 134
Effect of boundary conditions and loading eccentricity on buckling of axially com-
pressed stiffened cylindrical shells 13 8
Boundary conditions 138
Load eccentricity 146

5. Instability of shells of revolution subjected to combined loads and nonsymmetric loads 151
Summary 151
Combined loading 151
Nonsymmetric loading 152
Monocoque cylindrical shells under combined loading 152
Axial compression or bending and internal pressure 152
Torsion and internal pressure 154
Stiffened cylindrical shells under combined loading 157
Buckling of composite cylindrical shells under combined loading 159
Definitions 159
Previous work done 160
Buckling under combined loads 163
Buckling of nonaxisymmetrically loaded shells of revolution 166
Modeling considerations 166
Examples of buckling of nonsymmetrically loaded shells of revolution 167
Thermal buckling of nonsymmetrically heated shells 168
Introduction 168
Anderson and Card tests 170
Simply-supported cylinder heated on an axial strip 173
Parameter study - cylinders heated on axial strips 175
Buckling of conical shells heated on axial strips 176
Conclusions 177
Buckling of nuclear reactor containment vessel due to ground motion during an
earthquake 180

6. Buckling of ring-stiffened shells of revolution 182

Introduction 182
Summary 183
Elastic buckling of ring-stiffened cylinders under external hydrostatic pressure 184
Elastic-plastic buckling of ring-stiffened cylinders under external hydrostatic
pressure 188
Effects of residual stresses and deformations on plastic buckling of ring-stiffened
shells of revolution 192
Review of previous work 192
viii

Cold bending 192

Welding 193
Bending and welding 193
Effect of welding on the plastic buckling pressure of an ellipsoid ring-stiffened shell 194
Residual deformations from welding internal v. external rings 196
Effect of cold bending and welding on buckling of ring-stiffened cylinders 198
Cold bending of a flat sheet into a cylindrical shell of infinite length 199
Initial elastic loading 200
Elastic-plastic loading 201
Relaxation 201
Obtaining a value of Ro 202
Simulation of cold bending in BOSOR5 203
Procedure for using BOSOR5 to calculate buckling loads including residual
effects due to cold bending and welding 203
Comparisons with tests on cold-bent sheet 204
Buckling of cold bent and welded ring-stiffened cylinder: comparison of
test and theory 205
Possible causes of the remaining discrepancy between test and theory 207
Effect on buckling of deformations of the ring cross sections 208
General and local instability 208
Modal interaction 209
Comparisons with tests in which local ring deformations are important 215
Crippling of ring web 215
Wide column ring web "buckling" 215
General instability of ring-stiffened shallow conical shell 219

7. Buckling of prismatic shells and panels 220

Summary 220
Use of a computer code for shells of revolution to predict buckling loads of pris-
matic structures 220
Introduction 220
Analysis technique 223
Convergence studies 226
Numerical results 228
Nonuniformly loaded circular cylindrical shells 229
Stress and buckling of elliptic cylinders 229
Cylinders of noncircular cross section under axial compression 232
Bifurcation buckling of axially compressed panels 235
Introduction 235
Numerical results 239
Buckling of axially compressed corrugated and beaded panels 239
Effect of manufacturing method on general and local buckling of a semi-
sandwich corrugated panel 242
Modal interaction and imperfection sensitivity of axially compressed prismatic
structures 245
Introduction 245
Two types of modal interaction 245
Previous work done 246
Summary of this section 249
Modal interaction in an axially compressed two-flange column 250
The perfect column 250
Buckling with imperfect flanges but straight column.axis 253
Stability of eqUilibrium at the bifurcation load, K b 254
Buckling of columns with imperfect flanges and imperfect axes 256
Modal interaction in axially compressed, eccentrically stiffened panels 256
 ix

Optimization of imperfect columns and panels in which modal interaction occurs 259
Columns 259
Panels 262
Axially stiffened cylindrical shells 265
Transverse shear deformation effects 270
Laminated composite materials 270

8. Imperfection sensitivity 272

Introduction 272
Summary 272
Asymptotic post-buckling theory - a summary 273
Elastic post-bifurcation analysis 274
Elastic-plastic post-bifurcation analysis 276
Perfect elastic-plastic structures 277
Imperfect elastic-plastic structures 277
Qualitative guidelines for imperfection sensitivity 280
Axially compressed cylindrical shells and panels 282
Brief survey of work done 282
Nonlinear post-buckling behavior of perfect shells 283
Various boundary conditions and nonuniform or nonlinear pre-buckling
effects 283
Empirically derived design formulas for monocoque cylinders 284
Design rules for stiffened cylinders 284
Effect of geometric imperfections 285
Governing equations for asymptotic post-buckling approach 287
Karman-Donnell equations 287
Prebuckling analysis 287
Asymptotic analysis 289
Initial post-bifurcation load-deflection curve 291
Imperfection sensitivity 291
Numerical methods used to solve the various boundary-value problems and
evaluate b, 5, and ex 292
Governing equations for the nonlinear approach 292
Hutchinson's formulation [340] 293
Arbocz and Babcock's formulation [341] 294
Behavior of perfect cylinders 295
Behavior of imperfect cylinders 296
Axially compressed monocoque cylindrical shells: numerical results 297
Cylinders with sinusoidal axisymmetric imperfections 297
Cylinders with localized imperfections 299
Cylinders with random imperfections (axial compression or external pressure) 300
Cylinders with internal pressure 301
Axially compressed cylindrical panels 304
Axially compressed oval cylinders 306
Axially compressed stiffened and composite cylindrical shells: numerical results 307
Asymptotic post-buckling analysis of axially stiffened cylinders 307
Laminated cylindrical shells made of composite material 314
Calculation of load-carrying capability based on measurements of imperfections 318
Design method for axially compressed cylinders 319
Critical load from wide-column theory 321
Critical load from extended version of Koiter's special theory 321
Design philosophy 322
Numerical results 322
Conclusions 323
Imperfection sensitivity of cylinders under uniform hydrostatic pressure and torsion 326
x

Uniform hydrostatic pressure 326

Monocoque cylinders 326
Axially-stiffened cylinders 327
Ring-stiffened cylinders 328
General conclusions 328
Cylinders under torsion 329
Imperfection sensitivity of spherical shells 329
Introduction 329
Governing equations for the asymptotic post-buckling analysis 331
Application to a shallow spherical segment 334
Classical buckling analysis 334
Post-buckling equilibrium paths 335
Special theory vs. general theory 337
Difficulties encountered in the asymptotic analysis of complete spherical shells 338
Nonlinear numerical studies 339
Other asymptotic imperfection sensitivity analyses for doubly-curved shells of
revolution 341
Spherical caps with axisymmetric loading over part of the surface 341
Results of Fitch and Budiansky [391] 341
Questions raised by the results shown in Fig. 304 344
Nonsymmetrically loaded spherical shell 347
Initial post-buckling behavior of toroidal segments 349
Limitations of asymptotic imperfection sensitivity theory 350
Bifurcation buckling with stable post-buckling behavior 352
Spherical shell with an inward-directed point load 352
Stable post-buckling shearing deformations 354
Wagner beam 354
Computerized analysis of a complex stiffened curved panel under shear 355
Wrinkling of an antenna membrane 355
The Southwell method for determination of buckling loads from non-destructive
tests 357
Definition of the method 357
Examples of application of the Southwell method 360
Limitations of the Southwell method 361

9. Buckling of hybrid bodies of revolution 368

Introduction 368
Summary 369
Ring-stiffened cylindrical shells under uniform hydrostatic pressure 369
Spherical shells embedded in structural foam 372
Elastic-plastic instability of axially compressed shells of revolution with axisym-
metric frangible joints 373
Comparison of test and theory for a frangible joint embedded in a simple cylin-
drical shell 375
Test configuration and BOSOR6 model 375
Discretization 376
Pads 378
Material properties 378
Junction and contact conditions between the primacord tube and the cavity
provided for it 378
Numerical results 380
Frangible joint embedded in a complex shell structure 383
Structural configuration and segmented model 384
Substitution of uniform axial compression for the actual loads 385
Axisymmetric collapse of the rocket interstage 386
 xi

Effect of a minor design change 387

Effect of a steel primacord tube 392

References 393

Author index 413

Subject index 416

Foreword

This report describes the work performed by Lockheed Palo Alto Research Labora-
tory, Palo Alto, California 94304. The work was sponsored by Air Force Office of
Scientific Research, Bolling AFB, Washington, D.C. under Grant F49620-77-C-0l22
and by the Flight Dynamics Laboratory, Air Force Wright Aeronautical Laboratories,
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio under Contract F3361S-76-C-31OS.
The work was completed under Task 2307Nl, "Basic Research in Behavior of
Metallic and Composite Components of Airframe Structures". The work was admini-
stered by Lt. Col. J.D. Morgan (AFOSR) and Dr. N.S. Khot (AFWAL/FIBRA).
The contract work was performed between October 1977 and December 1980.
The technical report was released by the Author in December 1981.
Preface

Many structures are assembled from parts which are thin. For example, a stiffened
plate or cylindrical panel is composed of a sheet the thickness of which is small com-
pared to its length, breadth, and stiffener- spacing, and stiffeners the thickness of
which is small compared to their _heights and lengths. These assembled structures,
loaded in compression, can buckle overall, that is sheet and stiffeners can collapse
together in a general instability mode; the sheet can buckle locally between stiffeners;
the stiffeners can cripple; and a variety of complex buckling interactions can occur
involving local and overall deformations of both sheet and stiffeners. More complex,
built-up structures can buckle in more complex and subtle ways.
The designer of any structure susceptible to buckling must have a certain intuition
about buckling behavior. The objective of this book is to convey to the designer a
"feel" for shell buckling, whether the buckling be due to nonlinear collapse, bifur-
cation, or a combination of these modes. An intuitive understanding of instability
can be developed by study of a large number of examples involving practical shell
structures. These shell structures may be stiffened, segmented, or branched; they
may have complex wall constructions; they may have distributed or concentrated,
uniform or-nonuniform loads.
With enhanced intuitive knowledge about shell buckling, the designer should have
an improved ability to foresee situations in which buckling might occur and thus
modify a design to avoid it. He or she will be able to set up more appropriate models
for analytical predictions and for tests. In the first chapter of the book are several
illustrations of large, expensive shell structures that failed because of unexpected
buckling. Most of the failures did not occur because of a lack of analysis capability.
There were plenty of computer programs that, given appropriate input, would yield
accurate predictions. These structures failed because nobody set up and ran the
cases that should have been run. Nobody had sufficient familiarity with buckling
phenomena to identify proper numerical tests that would warn of impending disaster.
The main purpose of this book is to help provide this familiarity.
Emphasis is given here to nonlinear behavior caused by combinations of large de-
flections and elastic-plastic material behavior. Illustrated are stress redistribution
effects, stiffener and load-path eccentricity effects, local vs general instability, im-
perfection sensitivity, residual effects due to fabrication processes such as cold bending
xvi

and welding, and modal interaction in optimized structures. Scattered throughout

are tips on modeling for computerized numerical analysis. Most of the examples
involve shells of revolution, in particular, cylindrical shells.
The book is divided into nine chapters which describe: (1) types of instability,
examples of catastrophic failure of several large, expensive structures, and classical
buckling problems involving the axially compressed cylindrical shell and the externally
pressurized spherical shell; (2) nonlinear collapse and its relationship to bifurcation
buckling models; (3) bifurcation buckling in which nonuniformity or nonlinearity
of the pre buckling state is important; (4) effect of boundary conditions and eccentric
loading; (5) buckling of shells of revolution subjected to combined uniform loads and
nonsymmetric loads; (6) buckling of ring-stiffened shells of revolution; (7) buckling
of prismatic shells and panels; (8) Imperfection sensitivity; and (9) buckling of hybrid
bodies of revolution, that is shells that contain combinations of one and two-dimen-
sionally discretized domains.
The work first appeared in December, 1980, in the form of a report to the Flight
Dynamics Laboratory of the Air Force Wright Aeronautical Laboratories at Wright-
Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio (Report No. AFWAL-TR-81-3049, entitled COM-
PUTERIZED BUCKLING ANALYSIS OF SHELLS). This report was sponsored
partly by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) under Grant F49620-
n-C-0122, Lt. Col. J.D. Morgan, contract monitor, and partly by the Air Force
Flight Dynamics Laboratory (AFFDL) under Contract F33615-76-C-3105, Dr. N.S.
Khot, contract monitor. For these sponsorships I am grateful. In September, 1981
a summary of the book appeared as a long survey article in the AIAA Journal (pub-
lished by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) under the title,
"Buckling of Shells, Pitfall for Designers" (AIAA Journal, Vol. 19, No.9, September
1981, pp 1183-1226). The preparation of that summary was sponsored by the
1979 and 1980 Lockheed Independent Research and Development (IR & D) Programs.
Also sponsored by AFOSR, AFFDL, and Lockheed IR & D was the production
of a paper entitled "Computerized Buckling Analysis of Shells-Governing Equations",
which appeared in the journal COMPUTERS & STRUCTURES, Vol. 18, No.3, pp.
471-536 (1984), published by Pergamon Press. The paper is referred to many times
in the text of this book. It should be used in conjunction with the book because it
provides much of the mathematical detail from which the results in the book are
derived.
This book is aimed at engineers in government, industry, and universities who
have complex structural problems to solve and who have available to them computer
programs that solve shell buckling problems. The work does not focus on the mathe-
matics of shell buckling. It focuses on the phenomena associated with shell buckling:
nonlinear collapse and when this mode of instability is likely to occur, bifurcation
buckling and when this mode of instability is likely to occur, etc. The book will
assist the user of a computer program for shell buckling to set up models that will
yield accurate predictions of natural events.
Much of the book represents a distillation of my experience working on shell
buckling problems and writing computer programs for the analysis of shells and
hybrid bodies of revolution. Twenty years of this activity have produced a sort of
compost of intuition about shell buckling out of which solutions grow. During these
 xvii
years I have been most fortunate to have the opportunity to work with colleagues
who have deep understanding of structural engineering in general and of the rather
arcane phenomenon of shell buckling in particular. Digging deep into the compost, I
realize that the intuitive foundations were laid with the help of Professor Nicholas J.
Hoff, who as my PhD advisor, taught me to apply liberal doses of intuition and com-
mon sense in solving engineering problems. Nicholas Hoff, as an engineer and educator
of rare quality, made engineering fun. The late Bo Almroth, a former colleague in the
Applied Mechanics Laboratory at Lockheed, also influenced the way I approach shell
buckling problems. His intuitive grasp of the subject and commonsense solution of
very difficult problems were of great value. Another colleague, Jorgen Skogh, and
I exchange ideas on a daily basis concerning how we expect some complex shell
structure to withstand the rigors of its environment. He reinforces my own view
that common sense and intuition are important and perhaps, in this day of powerful
computers, vanishing ingredients of our expertise. His encouragement was a significant
factor leading to this book.
I have indeed been lucky to work in the Applied Mechanics Laboratory at the
Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratories, in which independent and basic research
is encouraged. I am particularly grateful for the long-term sponsorship of the Lock-
heed Independent Development programs managed by Mr. William W. Sable. This
sponsorship has enabled me to explore a wide variety of shell buckling methods and
problems unhindered by numerous requirements often imposed on researchers work-
ing in large organizations.
In writing the book, I made extensive use of the works of B.O. Almroth, D.O.
Brush, B. Budiansky, N.J. Hoff, W.H. Horton, J.W. Hutchinson, W.T. Koiter, J. Singer,
V. Tvergaard, and A. van der Neut. I also borrowed material from the papers of many
other authors, too numerous to list here. I express my thanks to these authors and
their publishers for permissions to reproduce many figures, tables, and phrases.
I also very much appreciate the help of Jessie Vosti and Colleen Miller, who drew
many of the figures, Edna Timbrook, who typed the manuscript, and Louise Roche:
who proofread the page proofs.
David Bushnell
Palo Alto, California
June 8,1985