Inelastic buckling of thick-walled circular conical shells under external hydrostatic pressure

The paper reports on a theoretical and an experimental study into the colla pse of three thick-walled circular conical shells, which were tested to fai lure under external hydrostatic pressure. All three vessels failed by plast ic non-symmetric bifurcation buckling. Two theoretical analyses were carrie d out, both based on the finite element method. One of the theoretical anal yses was based on inelastic non-symmetric bifurcation buckling and the othe r analysis was based on plastic axisymmetric buckling. Both of these theore tical analysis and the experimental observations appeased to indicate that there is a link between plastic non-symmetric bifurcation buckling and plas tic axisymmelric buckling. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserv ed.