Buckling of a spherical shell under external pressure and inward concentrated load: Asymptotic solution

Abstract

An asymptotic solution is suggested for a thin isotropic spherical shell subject to uniform external pressure and concentrated load. The pressure is the main load and a concentrated lateral load is considered as a perturbation that decreases buckling pressure. First, the post-buckling solution of the shell under uniform pressure is constructed. A known asymptotic result for large deflections is used for this purpose. In addition, an asymptotic approximation for small post-buckling deflections is obtained and matched with the solution for large deflections. The proposed solution is in good agreement with numerical results. An asymptotic formula is then derived, with the load-deflection diagrams analyzed for the case of combined load. Buckling load combinations are calculated as limiting points in the load-deflection diagrams. The sensitivity of the spherical shell to local perturbations under external pressure is analyzed. The suggested asymptotic result is validated by a finite element method using the ANSYS simulation software package.