Collapse And Buckling of Conical Shells

Abstract

Five laboratory scale models have been machined from 250 mm steel billet. The nominal wall thickness was, t = 2 mm, the semi-vertex angle, beta = 14 deg. Their (large radius, r2, to-wallthickness)-ratio was r2/t ≈ 50, and the (height, h, to large-radius)-ratio was h/r2 ≈ 1.0. Under axial compression, two nominally identical cones collapsed at Fcoll ≈ 230 kN. Further two models were subjected to lateral pressure, and one shell to hydrostatic pressure. The magnitudes of their bifurcation pressure were, pbif ≈ 4.7 MPa. Experimental results compare very well with numerical estimates of collapse and asymmetric bifurcation buckling. But the goodness of the comparison strongly depends on the modeling strategy.