Improvement of Cylinder Buckling Knockdown Factor through Imperfection Sensitivity

Numerical Variational Methods Applied to Cylinder Buckling

Abstract. We review and compare different computational variational methods applied to a system of fourth order equations that arises as a model of cylinder buckling. We describe both the discretization and implementation, in particular how to deal with a 1 dimensional null space. We show that we can construct many different solutions from a complex energy surface. We examine numerically conver...

Imperfection-sensitivity and Catastrophe Theory

Technical brief: Knockdown factor for the buckling of spherical shells containing large-amplitude geometric defects

We explore the effect of precisely defined geometric imperfections on the buckling load of spherical shells under external pressure loading, using finite element analysis that was previously validated through precision experiments. Our numerical simulations focus on the limit of large amplitude defects and reveal a lower bound that depends solely on the shell radius to thickness ratio and the a...

Cylinder Buckling: The Mountain Pass as an Organizing Center

We revisit the classical problem of the buckling of a long thin axially compressed cylindrical shell. By examining the energy landscape of the perfect cylinder, we deduce an estimate of the sensitivity of the shell to imperfections. Key to obtaining this estimate is the existence of a mountain pass point for the system. We prove the existence on bounded domains of such solutions for almost all ...

Postcritical Imperfection-sensitive Buckling and Optimal Bracing of Large Regular Frames

ABS!RA~T: Periodic i.nterior buckling of regular multistory and multibay rectangular elastic frames with elastic bracmg IS analyzed. It IS shown that there exists a certain critical bracing stiffness for which the critical loads f~r the nonsw~y (symmetric) ~d sway (antisymme~c) buckling modes coincide. Simple formulae for the critical stIffness .are .glven .. For the. c~.tica~ and soft~r bracI~...