Cylindrical shells above local supports

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Conclusions
This chapter has outlined the historical development of knowledge concerning the buckling and yielding failure of cylindrical shells under axial compression when they are supported on local discrete supports. These studies are still in an early stage of development, so this chapter has only considered supports beneath the base of the shell. The supports were taken to have a xed number around the circumference and to act as either exible (constant stress) supports or rigid (uniform displacements). The strength was shown to vary considerably with the width of the support, and to be affected by plasticity for much of the practical range of support widths. Buckling above narrow supports was shown to be controlled by the force transmitted, whilst buckling above wide supports is controlled by the mean stress. The studies explored a wide range of variables using geometrically and materially nonlinear analyses and including the deleterious effects of geometric imperfections in various forms. This work was summarised in the form of design equations based on the conceptual framework of the DIN 18800 (1990) standard. Two additional problems were explored in this chapter: the effect of internal pressure on the elasticplastic buckling strength, and the height over which a thicker base course must extend to achieve the higher buckling strength associated with the additional thickness. The ndings from both of these studies were transformed into design equations that can be adopted in design procedures.

Notation
B cc , ce d E fy F Fref , Fo Ftotal Fyield Fcl Fmax , Fcr GNAmin GNAmax LBA circumferential length of the 45 analysis cutout (= R/4) modifying factors to account for changed yield stress support width (= 2b) Youngs modulus yield stress (nominal values due to design codes) factored value of vertical reaction force on a support (= Fo ) reference magnitude of vertical reaction force on a support (= 300 kN) load applied to the whole cylinder (= nF ) yield load of the uniformly compressed cylinder divided by the number of supports classical elastic critical load of the uniformly compressed cylinder divided by the number of supports maximum or critical magnitude of vertical reaction force on a single support at the instant of buckling postbuckling minimum strength from geometrically nonlinear elastic analysis maximum strength from geometrically nonlinear elastic analysis linear buckling eigenvalue analysis