| Abstract: | A study is presented for the influence of addition of meridional curvature and eccentric stiffening on the buckling loads of stiffened cylindrical shells by performing complete nonlinear elastic analyses of stiffened shells of revolution. A formulation for the large displacement behavior of eccentrically stiffened shells of revolution under symmetric and asymmetric loadings including thermal loading is derived. The matrix displacement method is used to obtain equilibrium equations and so-called a modified Newton-Raphson approach is employed for the solution procedure. The shell is assumed to have orthotropic material properties. The geometric and material properties of both the shell and stiffeners are assumed to be constant in an element. The stringers are assumed to be closely and uniformly distributed and provide axial and flexural stiffness. The buckling loads are obtained from the nonlinear analyses for a number of examples such as cylinders, beams, rings, cylinders with rings or stringers, spherical and toroidal segments with stringers, and toroidal segments with rings and stringers under axial compressions. A comparison of the results with known solutions obtained by other methods shows excellent agreement. The buckling analysis for an idealized Space Station shows that (1) the effects of meridional curvature in a stiffened shell under axial compression are small for the symmetric buckling; however, the effects are fairly large for the asymmetric buckling, (2) the internal stringers are superior to the external stringer, (3) end rings give a higher buckling load, and (4) the buckling load for the cylindrical shell with internal stringers is higher than that for the externally stiffened cylinder. |
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