Elastic stability of thin-walled cylindrical and conical shells under axial compression

D E L I P R Results of an extensive experimental program on the stability of cylindrical and conical shells under axial compression are presented and discussed. The experimental data indicate that the buckling coefficient varies with radius-thickness ratio. A study of other data in the literature showed that most of the experimental results fell within or near the scatterband obtained in the present evaluation. A lower bound design curve is also contained in the paper.