Combined Bending and Compression of a Pressurized Circular Cylindrical Membrane Column

Abstract

Load-lateral deflection curves are developed for a pressurized tube of circular cross section under combined bending and compression. The tube walls are assumed to have negligible compressive strength so that wrinkling develops if the stress tends to become negative. It is found that for a given bending moment, the load increases monotonically with deflection until a maximum is reached beyond which the load decreases with increasing deflection. An interaction curve of the maximum load versus bending moment shows that the presence of only a small amount of bending significantly decreases the maximum compressive load below the classical Euler load. Conversely, for bending moments which produce almost complete wrinkling of the cross section, only very small amounts of compressive load can be supported.