ANALYSIS OF CYLINDRICAL SHELL STRUCTURES

Abstract

Cylindrical shells are widely used in civil engineering. Examples include, nuclear containment vessels, steel
silos and tanks for storage of bulk solids and liquids, and pressure vessels. The loading condition for these shells is quite
varied depending on the function of the shell. Axial compression, global bending, external or internal pressure and wind
loading are some of the most common loading forms for realistic structures. Buckling of shells is one of the most
complicated phenomenon in structural engineering. Shells are continuum structures where one dimension, the shell
thickness, is very small compared to the other two dimensions. Very small deformations take place in the shell when it
absorbs membrane strain energy. However, it deforms significantly when it absorbs bending strain energy. If the shell is
loaded so that its strain energy is in the form of membrane compression and the loading reaches a stage where this
stored membrane strain energy is converted into an equivalent bending energy, the shell deforms rather dramatically
and fails in a process called buckling.