THE POST-BUCKLING ANALYSIS OF RING-STIFFENED SHELLS UNDER HYDROSTATIC PRESSURE USING COMPOUND STRIP METHOD

In order to find the post-buckling path for ring-stiffened shells under hydrostatic pressure and consider the practical shapes of ring sections, the Compound Strip Method (CSM) is applied to the post-buckling analysis of ring-stiffened cylindrical shells. The improved arc- length orthogonality method is used to track the nonlinear load-displacement path. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the CSM. It is shown that the CSM is very computationally efficient in comparison with the finite element method and its total number of degrees of freedom is independent of the dimensions of a shell. It is also found that generally there is no bifurcation point in the post-buckling path for practical ring-stiffened shells under hydrostatic pressure. The pressure is shown to inorease with the displacement. It is concluded that the CSM is an ideal method for analysis of stiffened plate and shell structures.