Hydrostatic, wind and non-uniform lateral pressure solutions for containment vessels

Abstract The governing Flugge stability equations in coupled form are used for cylinders subjected to external pressure that varies circumferentially. Three cases are considered: fluid (hydrostatic) pressure, wind pressure and partial (patch) circumferential pressure. The wind load follows the Australian Standard AS 1170.2 (1989). Longitudinal variation of the load is not considered. The numerical process gives the stagnation buckling pressure for different shell geometry and simple support conditions at each end. The Galerkin method is employed to orthogonalize the error made with the introduction of the finite series into the governing equations. The solutions are compared with a few published solutions in the literature.