Thickness effects on the stability of thin walled structures (Q1821600)

A consistent method for the analysis of bifurcation instabilities in shells of arbitrary thickness has been proposed. The advantages of this method, as compared to the classical approach followed so far, are the independence of the results on the nonlinear shell theory employed as well as the possibility of finding the dependence of the critical load and eigenmode on the shell's thickness up to any degree of accuracy desired. A brief description of the general method, which is asymptotic with respect to the shell's thickness, is followed by its application to the case of an internally or externally pressurized infinite cylindrical tube for which an analytical solution of the resulting asymptotic problem is possible. Critical loads and modes compare very favorably with a numerical solution of the exact three dimensional problem even for relatively thick tubes. The presentation is concluded with a short discussion on the application of this technique to the general wrinkling instability in metal forming.