INFLUENCE OF IMPERFECTIONS AND EDGE RESTRAINT ON THE BUCKLING OF AXIALLY COMPRESSED CYLINDERS

Abstract

Abstract : Recent investigations on the influence of edge conditions on the critical axial load of cylindrical shells are extended here to include cylinders with elastic edge restraint. It is shown that weak edge conditions are unlikely to affect the critical load significantly in experiments or in practice. Also the effects of symmetric initial imperfections were investigated. The critical load for cylinders with initial imperfections in the form of a cosine function was found to be somewhat lower than was indicated in a previous analysis by Koiter. The analysis also disclosed that very short cylinders would not be sensitive to the types of imperfections which were considered. A few tests were performed and their results tend to support this conclusion.