ASTER Shell: a simple concept to significantly increase the plastic buckling strength of short cylinders subjected to combined external pressure and axial compression

Abstract

This paper proposes a new type of shell, similar to a cylindrical shell, which has significantly higher buckling strength when subjected to an arbitrary combination of uniform external pressure and axial compression. The underlying principle consists in a slight modification of the perfect cylinder in order to counteract the natural deformations which get larger and larger and lead to the collapse of the structure. Such shells are called ASTER shells. The concept has been validated through experiments, then analyzed numerically in order to explain what was observed and to propose avenues for improvements. The shells were made of electrodeposited nickel. The material was characterized. The chosen specimens were carefully measured to characterize their thickness and initial imperfections, then tested under the various types of loading. Then they were analyzed using finite elements. Thus, we were able to compare the finite element predictions with the experimental results. This comparison shows that plasticity has a decisive influence on the critical load and that linear elastic dimensioning leads to a serious overestimation of the experimental critical load. Contrary to perfect cylindrical shells, this type of shell is not significantly affected by geometric imperfections: this is another advantage of this type of design. Finally, we propose a numerical analysis in order to optimize the choice of the shape and propose shapes which resist buckling much better than a smooth cylinder when subjected to uniform external pressure, axial compression or a combination of both.