Buckling Analysis of Thin-Walled Cylinder under Axial Compression and Internal Hydrostatic Pressure Using Finite Element Model

The efficiency of thin-walled structures can be improved by accurately predicting critical design parameters. The study on the effects of hydrostatic load on the stability of thin-walled structures has been limited to external hydrostatic load. This paper presents the buckling analysis of thin-walled cylinders under axial compression and internal hydrostatic pressure using the finite element method. The numerical results in the study have shown that the internal hydrostatic pressure had an appreciable strengthening effect on the cylindrical shell. The paper also discusses the effect of internal hydrostatic pressure on the characteristic deformation modes of a thin-walled cylinder. In the design of lightweight structures, stiffening elements improve the structural efficiency. Lastly, this paper studies the effect of the number of stiffeners on the critical buckling load for axially compressed cylinders using a general-purpose finite element code.