Experimental Investigation into the Effects of Indenting a Cylindrical Shell by a Load Applied through a Rigid Boss

A series of tests has been performed on thin unpressurized cylinders loaded by two equal and opposite forces applied across a diameter. Special emphasis was laid on elucidating the response of the specimens to large displacements in order to check the possible appearance of any snapping action.Tests were performed on cylinders both with and without edge constraints and the experimental procedure was devised in order to isolate, as far as possible, the effects of plastic strains.No actual strains were measured and the results presented all correlate the variation of displacements with variations in the applied loads.