Analysis of Shells of Revolution Formed of Closed Box Section

Abstract

An exact analysis method is presented for shells of revolution formed of closed box sections. A consistent shell theory is used to develop the differential equations of the shell which in turn are solved by the use of numerical integration. A new method is introduced to generate a symmetrical stiffness matrix from the numerically obtained exact displacement functions. While the exact solution is generated at all times, the highly developed finite element numerical techniques are shown to be immediately applicable.