Effects of material properties and dimensions on buckling behavior of thin-walled cylindrical shell under hydrostatic pressure and axial force using an Abaqus developed plugin

Abstract

Underwater thin-walled shells are widely used for underwater robots and are prone to buckling due to external hydrostatic pressure. These shells are produced by welding two circular plates to a cylinder. Various materials can be selected for shell fabrication in various sizes. The current study aims to study the effect of material properties and design parameters on the buckling behavior of cylindrical thin-walled shells. To this end, a plugin was developed in Abaqus to simulate a cylindrical shell according to defined properties and geometries. In this step, cylindrical shells with various material properties and various cylinder geometries were modeled, and the pressurizing process was simulated using the Riks method. Results showed that the buckling resistance directly increases by yield stress increase, and ultimate stress, yield strain, and plastic strain do not affect the buckling behavior. The study on geometrical parameters showed that the shell length in this case study does not change significantly the critical pressure. However, by adding the shell diameter, the buckling resistance decreases. On the contrary, the higher thickness led to higher resistance. Finally, modeling reliability is validated by an experimental approach. Here, a few cylindrical shells were manufactured and tested. Differences between results were around 5 percent, meaning the model is acceptable and reliable for future design by adding a safety factor.