Lower Bounds for Overall Buckling of Spherical Space Domes

Abstract

Elastic buckling of pressure‐loaded spherical space domes is reinterpreted using a recently postulated reduced‐stiffness model. By means of extensive nonlinear numerical studies into the effects of geometric imperfections, over a range of practical geometric parameters, this simplified analysis is shown to provide close approximations of the lower bound loads and their associated modes. As has been demonstrated for related shell‐buckling problems, the reduced stiffness method allows the load‐reduction effects of the complex, postbuckling nonlinearities to be conservatively reproduced. The analysis is sufficiently simple that it can be routinely adopted at the design stage.