ABSTRACT
The axial compression strength causing elastic buckling in a thin-walled cylindrical shell is important to design and variation in the minimum load that occur as thickness decreases is a key factor in terms of ensuring safe design. The authors previous demonstrated a method for estimating the minimum load reproducible from test results for partial snap-through buckling occurring in clamped shell structures. We introduced the method for calculating the minimum buckling strength by assigning an initial load to a specific location on the shell structure instead of assigning an initial imperfection, and using an explicit method instead of the Arc-Length-Method. In the study, this method is applied to the problem of elastic buckling under axial compression of cylindrical shell structures. This evaluation further indicates the correlation between the initially assigned local deformation and the minimum buckling load.
