Characterization of Stress Concentration in Thin Cylindrical Shells with Rectangular Cut-out Under Axial Pressure

In this paper, stress concentration in the thin cylindrical shell with rectangular cut-out subjected to uniform axial pressure was investigated using a parametric finite element model. Design of experiments techniques and statistical analysis was used to provide a model for characterizing the critical stress in these components. The influences of the geometrical parameters and their combinations were studied in detail. It was observed that the length to width ratio of the cut-out, the length and the radius to thickness ratio of the cylinder were significant parameters for describing the stress concentration around the cut-out, respectively. By increasing the length to width ratio as a main effective geometrical factor in the stress concentration, the stress around the cut-out was increased significantly. Based on the statistical analysis conducted in this study, a formula was derived which can predict the stress concentration around the cut-out of the cylinder with the accuracy more than 84% (R^2 = 88.7%, R^2 pred= 84.6%, R^2 adj = 86.7%).