LAUSR

ABSTRACT In the presented paper elastic–plastic buckling of hemispherical heads under external pressure was studied. Five laboratory-scale models with nominal diameter = 120 mm and thickness = 0.4 mm were manufactured and tested. Collapse loads of geometrically perfect and imperfect heads were obtained theoretically and numerically. The nonlinear buckling of hemispherical heads are numerically studied under various wall thicknesses 0.24–0.6 mm, yield strengths 180–230 MPa, and imperfection sizes 0.01–0.05 mm. Proposed analytical formulae predicting nonlinear buckling loads of hemispherical heads were verified experimentally and benchmarked against numerical results. The results of analytical, numerical, and experimental investigations were compared in tables and figures.