Buckling of sandwich cylindrical shells under axial loading

Important characteristics of the previously proposed reduced stiffness method and a summery of its design curves for the buckling of the axially loaded sandwich cylindrical shells is presented. Comparison of the lower bound obtained with FEM analysis with that from the reduced stiffness analysis shows that the proposed reduced stiffness method can provide safe lower bounds for the buckling of geometrically imperfect, axially loaded sandwich cylindrical shells. One of the attractive features of the reduced stiffness elastic lower bound analysis is that it provides safe estimates of buckling loads that do not depend on the specification of the precise magnitude of the imperfection spectra. As a result, designers can readily apply this method without being worried about possible geometrical imperfections that might be generated during fabrication and construction of sandwich cylindrical shells.