ABSTRACT
Thin-walled cylindrical shells in civil engineering applications are often subjected to membrane shear stresses, mostly in connection with a transverse loading and overall bending. The most widely adopted approach for the design of such structures against loss of structural stability (shell buckling) is to check the maximum values of shear stresses against design values which are deduced from investigations on cylinders loaded by pure torsion. This is one of the three thinkable ‘fundamental shell buckling cases’ including axial compression, external pressure and torsion, which cover all buckling-relevant membrane stresses in a cylindrical shell. Buckling under torsion therefore was subject to numerous experimental and theoretical investigations.
