ABSTRACT
As part of recent work on the structural behaviour of loaded toroidal shells with a parabolic ogival cross-section, this paper addresses the static stability of the shell form when subjected to uniform external pressure using the commercial finite element software Abaqus. The boundary condition configurations leading to the lowest buckling values are adopted in the study, and the weakest zones of the toroidal vessel are found to be near the top and bottom edges of the outer segment. Then, a parametric study is conducted, which shows that the buckling strength of the vessel is greatly a function of the geometrical parameters of the parabolic ogival cross-section, and peak critical pressure values are associated with toroids of local cross-sectional height to width ratio of around 1.5. The vessel is seen to be generally stable after bifurcation loads. Elastic-plastic analysis will be required due to the high level of stresses observed in the pressurised toroids.
