Cylindrical shells under axial compression

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Introduction
Axial compression in cylindrical shells Structural members subjected to compression are susceptible to Euler buckling, and the Euler buckling stress of a given quantity of material is at its greatest when all the material is placed as far as possible from the axis. This makes the thin cylindrical tube or shell the most efcient form for compression members. However, as the tube wall becomes thinner, other local forms of buckling intervene, and these shell buckling modes control the strength of thin-walled cylinders. Compression members of this form include aircraft, spacecraft and terrestrial vehicles, as well as components of bridges, offshore platforms and other civil engineered structures. Shell structures are also very efcient for containment of uids and solids, with very thin walled vessels being commonly used for both tanks and silos. This book is chiey concerned with civil engineering structures, so the assumed geometries and material behaviours relate mostly to them. However, the low resistance to shell buckling of these thin shells means that buckling is a primary design concern. In many applications, the diameter of the cylinder is controlled by other factors (storage containers, chimneys, aircraft and spacecraft, towers, etc.), so the required thickness may be so small that the buckling stress falls far below the strength of the material. For most thin shells, this is the case. Axial compression in a cylinder arises from different causes in different structures: in a tower, the weight of the structure may provide a relatively uniform compression. In both towers and chimneys (Fig. 2.1(a)), the transverse loading of wind or earthquake leads to compressive stresses on one side (Fig. 2.2(b)), increasing down the length of the structure, and sometimes in a more complex pattern than that predicted by engineering bending theory. In storage tanks with the cylinder axis vertical, loads on the roof cause axial compression in the shell walls (Fig. 2.2(a)),

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(b)

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Figure 2.1 Examples of axial compression in civil engineering cylindrical shells: (a) tower or chimney; (b) saddle-supported tank; (c) silo.