Plastic buckling of conical shells under axial compression

Abstract Analysis and experimental results are presented on the plastic axisymmetric buckling of steep, truncated conical shells under axial compression. Specimens of 6061-T6 aluminum and type 416 stainless steel were tested; in spite of the considerable difference in the stress-strain curves for the two materials, the buckling modes observed in the experiments for geometrically identical cones were the same. Perturbation analysis, which takes account of the continuous change in direction of the plastic strain rate vector during buckling, is found to describe the essential features of the observed buckling deformation.