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J.M. Rotter

study has some serious implications for design in view of the above discussion on identication of the most damaging imperfection form. Laboratory model cylinders are commonly fabricated by wrapping a single sheet of material around a form and making a longitudinal joint. This method leads to geometric imperfections that are predominantly unsymmetrical relative to the axis. As a result, most tests (Weingarten et al. 1965b; Saal et al. 1979) indicate rather rapid strength gains due to internal pressure. By contrast, the normal full-scale fabrication process (Fig. 2.12) includes circumferential joints that often produce signicant axisymmetric imperfection components. Even if these are not the most damaging imperfection for the unpressurised cylinder, they rapidly become the most damaging in the presence of internal pressure. Some earlier tests (Lo et al. 1951; Fung and Sechler 1957; Harris et al. 1957; Thielemann 1960) show lower strength gains, but the imperfections were not measured and the manner in which the results are presented make them difcult to assess. Codified rule for pressurisation strength gain In the context of the above, it is evident that the experimental database for strength gain with internal pressure must be treated with some caution. Earlier proposed expressions for the strength gain (Harris et al. 1957; Trahair et al. 1983; ECCS 1988) were all derived as empirical lower bounds to test results, and some took little account of variations in the unpressurised strength. These were reviewed by Rotter (1985). However, following the work of Hutchinson (1965), it is evident that the strength gains for practical construction should be closely associated with the behaviour when axisymmetric imperfections are present (Fig. 2.12), and this is currently only achievable by calculation. The ENV 1993-1-6 (1999) rule is based on such calculation, and permits the elastic buckling strength to rise above the unpressurised value, with a revised value of in Eqs (14)(17) as xpe = x0 + (1 x0 ) p
0 .5 ) p + (0.3/x0

(23)

where the elastic unpressurised strength reduction x0 is given by Eq. (13) and p is dened in Eq. (22). The origin of this expression is given by Rotter (1997). It adjusts the rate of strength gain according to the initial imperfection sensitivity, giving more rapid rises in imperfect cylinders, but the strength gains are generally considerably lower than those associated with asymmetric imperfections. It should be noted that recent calculations (Walker and Wilson 2001) have revealed that the strength gains due to internal pressure may be substantially lost if the pressure is slightly circumferentially non-uniform within the cylinder. For uid-lled cylinders, this is only a problem when the cylinder axis is horizontal, but for silos storing soft solids, it may require a careful reassessment of the strength gain provision. Further research is urgently needed on this question.