Introduction to Shell Buckling

Shells are curved thin-walled structures. In addition to the general strength verification, they must always be examined with regard to their stability behavior. Analogous to plate buckling, we speak of so-called shell buckling in this case. In addition to the ideal bifurcational buckling problem—i.e. the determination of the critical buckling load—the postbuckling behavior must also be considered in lightweight construction applications. In this chapter, we consider the buckling equation for the special case of circular cylindrical shells and provide closed-form analytical solutions for determining the critical buckling load. For the circular cylindrical shell, we also consider the postbuckling behavior in a closed-form analytical manner. Circular cylindrical shells not only have a fundamental and technically very important significance, e.g. in aerospace engineering, but also have some special features with regard to their stability behavior, which justifies their detailed consideration.