This paper deals with the buckling problem of circular cylindrical shells surrounded with liquid under external uniform pressure as the first stage to analyze the stability of cylindrical offshore structures. A theoretical analysis is performed by means of the Galerkin method on the basis of the Donnell-type equation for shells, taking the effect of the axisymmetric deformation due to the static liquid pressure into consideration. Calculations are carried out for both simply supported and clamped shells and the buckling conditions are determined for various values of the shell geometric parameter
Z, liquid pressure parameter
px, liquid depth ratio
l0 and the external pressure parameter
kp.
The main results obtained may be summarized as follows:(1) The buckling liquid depth ratio to decreases monotonously with an increase in the values of
px and
kp.
(2) Using the liquid pressure parameter
px (the ratio of the maximum liquid pressure when the cylinder is surrounded with liquid up to the upper end to the critical uniform pressure
p0, for the empty one), the effects of the boundary conditions and the shell geometries on the buckling condition are almost negligible.
(3) When the cylinder buckles at
l0=1.0 under the surrounding liquid only, the critical value of the liquid pressure parameter is
px=2.0 regardless of the boundary conditions and the shell geometries
Z. Therefore, the cylinder does not buckle for
px<2.0 and buckles at
l0<1.0 for
px>2.0.
(4) The effects of the surrounding liquid and the external pressure on the prebuckling and buckling deformation are clarified by means of the contour map representation.
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