Elastic buckling of axisymmetric cylindrical shells under axial load using first order shear deformation theory

In this paper, the elastic buckling stress of axisymmetric cylindrical shells under uniform axial load is determined analytically by using the first order shear deformation theory. The equilibrium equations are derived by the virtual work principle and then the stability equations are extracted from them. They are systems of differential equations, which are solved analytically by using the perturbation method. The effects of the geometrical properties on the buckling stress are investigated by a parametric study. The results are compared with the finite elements methods. (C) 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim