Analysis of EN 1993-1-6 guidelines about determining amplitudes of equivalent imperfections of steel cylindrical shells subjected to uniform external pressure

摘要

Civil engineering structures should be designed with reference to relevant standards. One of them is a Eurocode 3 standard EN 1993-1-6:2007: Design of steel structures Part 1-6: Strength and Stability of Shell Structures. According to this standard, the value of buckling load can be determined using different approaches: classical hand calculations (stress design) and geometrical and material non-linear analysis of an imperfect structure (GMNIA). However, preliminary calculations show that there are great discrepancies between buckling pressure values obtained by these alternative methods. This paper presents a comparison of the results of numerical analyses and experimental tests conducted by the author, depending on the value of the amplitude of equivalent imperfection adapted in numerical modeling.