Stability of a toroidal fluid-containing shell

This paper presents a solution to the stability problem of a sectorial toro idal shell subject to fluid loading. The solution is based on the Budiansky shell stability theory specialized for toroidal coordinates, and is develo ped using the two-dimensional differential quadrature method. Numerical res ults are presented and these results are compared with results from the Don nell shell theory, and with ones from a finite element method solution. The study establishes the suitability of the differential quadrature method fo r problems of shell stability. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights re served.