Creep collapse of cylindrical shells

Abstract This paper develops a theory for the collapse of cylindrical shells under steady-state creep and under external radial pressure and high temperature (300 to 500 F.). The boundary conditions assumed for the cylinders approximate the “simply supported” and “fixed-end” conditions and the theory takes into account the initial deviation from circularity of the cylinder cross section. The paper thus represents an extension of the investigation described in (5) in which cylinders with “free” ends were considered. The theoretical predictions of collapse time (ter) are compared with experimental results on aluminum alloy (6061-T6) cylinders and show reasonably good agreement.