Buckling of Stiffened Thin-Walled Cylindrical Shells under Axial Compression with Symmetrical Imperfections

This study aimed to investigate the effects of stiffeners on buckling of thin cylindrical shells under uniform axial compression. To this end, more than 300 finite element models of stiffened cylindrical shells were prepared. The variables considered are shell thickness, number, dimension and the location of the vertical and horizontal stiffeners as well as circular symmetrical imperfections. Results show that the stiffeners can increase buckling of the stiffened cylindrical shells under axial compression. It is also shown that buckling of the cylindrical shells is susceptible to some circular imperfection patterns. In this context, buckling graph of the models are compared with each other; obviously, the stiffened shells with more stiffeners have upper buckling graph in force - displacement curves.