In this paper we initiate a program of rigorous analytical investigation ofthe paradoxical buckling behavior of circular cylindrical shells under axialcompression. This is done by the development and systematic application ofgeneral theory of "near-flip" buckling of 3D slender bodies to cylindricalshells. The theory predicts scaling instability of the buckling load due toimperfections of load. It also suggests a more dramatic scaling instabilitycaused by shape imperfections. The experimentally determined scaling exponent1.5 of the critical stress as a function of shell thickness appears in ouranalysis as the scaling of the lower bound on safe loads given by the Kornconstant. While the results of this paper fall short of a definitiveexplanation of the buckling behavior of cylindrical shells, we believe that ourapproach is capable of providing reliable estimates of the buckling loads ofaxially compressed cylindrical shells.
展开▼
