Collapse strength of unstiffened conical shells under axial compression

The paper presents the results obtained during a test programme involving unstiffened steel cones in compression. Due to the relatively low slenderness of the specimens, the failure was in all cases significantly influenced by plasticity effects. A plastic mechanism approach, including second order effects, is shown to be a simple and effective tool for predicting the collapse load and also for simulating the load-shortening response. The derivation of the theoretical expressions pertaining the mechanism are summarised and some aspects regarding the solution procedures are presented. Comparisons between the proposed mechanism approach and the experiments are reported. Finally, some design considerations and comments with regard to existing shell buckling codes are presented. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.