Buckling of eccentrically stringer-stiffened cylindrical panels under axial compression

This paper investigates the effects of boundary conditions and panel width on the axially compressive buckling behavior of eccentrically stringer-stiffened circular cylindrical panels. Numerical results are presented for eight different sets of boundary conditions along the straight edges of the panels. As the panel width is increased, the results show that the complete cylinder buckling load is reached only for one set of boundary conditions (SS3, classical simple support conditions). However, for 180° and wider panels, the panel buckling loads are within ± 10% of the complete cylinder load for all cases except SS1 panels (free in-plane edge displacements) with outside stringers. Low buckling loads, as low as half the complete cylinder load, are found for some SS 1 panels. It is also observed that the prevention of circumferential edge displacement is the most important in-plane boundary condition from the point of view of increasing the buckling load, and that the prevention of edge rotation (i.e. clamping) in the circumferential direction is more effective in increasing the buckling loads of panels with free circumferential edge displacement υ that it is for panels with υ = 0. From stringer-eccentricity studies, it is shown that buckling loads are generally at least 40–50% higher for the case of outside stringers, and that eccentricity effects are generally similar for clamped and simply supported panels with the same in-plane boundary conditions.