Buckling Strength of Near-Cylindrical Shells

A procedure is proposed whereby critical loads for elastic near-cylindrical shells are determined with the use of equations in terms of displacements. An analytical expression has been derived for the assessment of critical stresses in momentless smooth shells. A contribution of individual components of the total potential energy of such shells to stabilization or destabilization of the strain state is analyzed graphically. Dimensionless critical stresses are assessed with respect to classical ones as determined for ideal cylindrical shells. The data obtained are compared with the known experimental results.