Buckling and failure behavior of the silicon carbide (SiC) ceramic cylindrical shell under hydrostatic pressure

The present study explores the buckling and failure behavior of the silicon carbide (SiC) ceramic cylindrical shell under hydrostatic pressure using experimental and nonlinear numerical methods. An innovative experiment setup is designed and built. The hydrostatic test of the SiC ceramic cylindrical shell is carried out. The buckling deformation of the shell is captured by a high-speed camera and the strain response is recorded by strain gauges. In order to compare with the experimental results, the failure behavior of the SiC ceramic cylindrical shell subjected to hydrostatic pressure is simulated using a nonlinear numerical approach. Both the ultimate tensile strength and ultimate compression strength of the material are taken into consideration. The maximum equivalent stress is used as the failure criterion. The buckling mode simulated by the numerical method is in good agreement with the deformation shape observed in the test. As for the buckling pressure, the deviation from the experimental result is only 3.62%. Both the experimental and numerical results show that the failure of the SiC ceramic cylindrical shell under hydrostatic pressure is a typical coupling failure of strength damage and structural instability.