Some Recent Advances in the Investigation of Shell Buckling

A survey is presented which includes the buckling of shells under loads for which the shell is sensitive to initial imperfections. Results for such cases show that improvements in experiment and theory have produced previously unobtainable agreement. The necessity of the correct (and consistent) theoretical specification of boundary conditions is then demonstrated. Recent stiffened cylinder results are surveyed to expose the large effects on the buckling strength of internal or external stiffening, axial load applied eccentric to the wall neutral surface, and the addition of small meridional curvature.