Buckling of Axially Compressed Circular Cylindrical Shells at Stresses Smaller Than the Classical Critical Value

Abstract

Closed-form solutions are given of the linear Donnell equations defining the buckling of thin-walled circular cylindrical shells subjected to uniform axial compression. In addition to the classical simple support conditions requiring the vanishing of the radial displacement, the axial bending-moment resultant, the axial additional normal-stress resultant, and the circumferential displacement, three other, equally justifiable, simple support conditions are defined and studied in the case of the semi-infinite shell. Two of them yield buckling stresses amounting to about one half the classical critical stress.