Buckling design of stiffened cylindrical shells under axial compression based on energy barrier approach. (October 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fan, Haigui; Li, Longhua; Gu, Wenguang; Liu, Peiqi; Hu, Dapeng
• Is Part Of: Thin-walled structures. Volume 179(2022)
• Publication Date: 2022-10
• Subjects: Buckling -- Stiffened cylindrical shell -- Axial compression -- Imperfection sensitivity -- Knockdown factor; Thin-walled structures -- Periodicals; 690.1
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tws.2022.109667
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0263-8231

Abstract

Abstract: Buckling design of axially compressed cylindrical shells is still a challenging subject due to the well-known imperfection sensitivity characteristic. Compared to the unstiffened ones, design of buckling loads for the stiffened cylindrical shells composed of skins and stiffeners is more difficult considering about the complicated effects of structural parameters on the imperfection sensitivity. In this paper, the promising buckling design method based on energy barrier approach is applied to the axially compressed stiffened cylindrical shells. Three manufactured stiffened cylindrical shells from references are selected to verify the reliability of the method by comparing with the existing experimental data. In addition, various stiffened cylindrical shell models with dimple imperfections are designed and numerically researched in this paper to further prove the reliable design buckling loads provided by this method. The buckling loads designed by other similar methods are also taken for comparison. Results have verified the reliability and advantage of the method in this paper for clarifying imperfection sensitivity and designing buckling loads of stiffened cylindrical shells. Then, using this method, the complicated effects of different structural parameters on the imperfection sensitivity and design buckling loads of the stiffened cylindrical shells are systematically investigated. Based on that, the stiffened cylindrical shells with both high design buckling loads and quite low imperfection sensitivity which are always favorable in lightweight design have been successfully obtained. It also indicates a potential improvement for the load-carrying efficiency of current stiffened cylindrical shells using the buckling design method based on energy barrier approach. Highlights: Buckling design of stiffened cylindrical shells by energy barrier approach is presented. Reliability and advantage of the buckling design method are verified by numerical and existing experimental results. Parametric effects on design buckling loads of stiffened cylindrical shells are clarified. The cylindrical shells with both high buckling loads and low imperfection sensitivity are obtained.