Abstract:
An extension of the Donnell and Wan analysis for the buckling of a shell with initial imperfections is presented for a mode of arbitrary profile. Results for a mode with 26 arbitrary parameters are given with charts of the stress-strain characteristics for cylinders with initial displacements of between one-eighth and five times the skin thickness of the cylinder. A direct optimisation of the energy function is used. Almroth's minimum post-buckled stress for the ideal cylinder (0.0656 Et/R) is lowered to 0.0518 Et/R and a critical assessment of the value of such figures provided.
