Buckling of shallow spherical shells including the effects of transverse shear deformation

The large deflection equation of a shallow spherical shell under uniformly distributed transverse loads is established in this paper with consideration of effects of transverse shear deformation on flexural deformation. Using an updated iteration method, an analytical solution for nonlinear stability of a shallow spherical shell is obtained. Formulae for estimating the critical buckling loads are presented for two types of boundary conditions. Discussions on the influences of the geometric and physical parameters on the critical buckling loads are given.