ABSTRACT

In this paper, buckling of ring stiffened cylindrical shells subjected to uniform external pressure is investigated. Ring stiffened cylindrical shells are widely used as main structural components of submarine pressure hulls. The basic buckling modes of these types of structures are asymmetric buckling, symmetric buckling and general instability. First two modes correspond to shell instability between frames and third one, general instability, is described as instability of shell and frame combination. Dimensions of model used in this paper are chosen such that buckling mode of model is asymmetric buckling. Related model is small scale model and results of that model can be applied to full scale submarine pressure hulls. In this paper, small scale model is used in the experiment and ultimate strength of it is determined and results are compared with analytical and numerical solutions.