Plastic Buckling of Short Vertical Cylindrical Shells Subjected to Horizontal Edge Shear Loads

Vertical liquid-filled cylindrical shells which are subjected to horizontal seismic loads can fail by buckling in shear. One example where this might arise in the nuclear industry is with the primary vessel in a fast breeder reactor (LMFBR) and design criteria are, therefore, needed to prevent its occurrence. In the present paper, the static analogue of the foregoing problem is considered and experimental results on the plastic buckling of short, steel cantilevered cylindrical shells subjected to transverse edge shearing loads are presented. In addition, a simple quadratic equation is suggested for predicting the plastic shear buckling loads. The agreement between the experimental shear loads at the inception of buckling and the predictions of the proposed design equation is excellent for the limited range of geometries investigated.