The Equilibrium of Corrugated Plates and Shells

Abstract

Corrugations are used to stiffen sheet materials and in so doing they increase the bending and torsional stiffness in one direction and reduce the in plane membrane stiffness in the other. In this paper we examine the implications of this for the equilibrium of corrugated plate and shell structures. In particular we show that if the derivation is kept in terms of membrane strain energy then such a structure is statically determinate. As a result, a closed-form solution is obtained for a corrugated shell which is simple to solve numerically and could allow a designer to explore a range of different corrugation patterns and support conditions in the initial stage of design.