Repeated buckling and its influence on the geometrical imperfections of stiffened cylindrical shells under combined loading

Abstract

The present experimental study aims at providing better inputs for improvement of the buckling load predictions of stiffened cylindrical shells subjected to combined loading. The work focuses on two main factors which considerably affect the combined buckling load of stiffened shells, namely geometric imperfections and boundary conditions. Six shells with nominal simple supports were tested under various combinations of axial compression and external pressure. The vibration correlation technique is employed to define the real boundary conditions. The geometric imperfections of the integrally stiffened shells are measured in the present experiments in situ and are used as inputs to a multimode analysis which yields the corresponding "knockdown" factor for various combinations of loading. Thus, when employing the repeated buckling procedure for obtaining interaction curves, each point on the curve is adjusted (using the multimode analysis) for the measured "new" surface of the shell and this results in more realistic interaction curves. The geometrical imperfections of the preloaded shells can also serve as an input to the International Imperfection Data Bank for future studies on the correlation between the manufacturing method of the shell and their geometric imperfections. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.