Bifurcation buckling in which nonuniformity or nonlinearity of the prebuckling state is important

Abstract

All of the examples in this chapter involve axisymmetric shells. The feature that unifies these examples, that makes it logical to include them all in this particular chapter, is the major influence of certain nontrivial aspects of the prebuckling solution on predictions of bifurcation buckling loads. Whereas the emphasis in the last chapter was on nonlinear collapse rather than bifurcation buckling, the emphasis here is on bifurcation buckling with nontrivial prebuckling behavior. As was pointed out before, bifurcation from a nonlinear prebuckling state is of practical interest only in configurations with a great deal of symmetry. That is why the applications here all involve axisymmetrically loaded shells of revolution.