Experimental Study of the Creep Buckling of Moderately Thin-walled Circular Cylindrical Shells Subjected to Axial Compression

Test equipment suitable for the study of the creep buckling of axially compressed circular cylindrical shells was developed and built. With the aid of this equipment, thirty-one electroformed nickel cylinders of radius-to-thickness ratios ranging from 30.6 to 96.4 were tested at a temperature of 650F. The loading of each specimen was interrupted usually once, and in some cases twice, to permit an exact measurement of the creep deformations produced by the axial compression. Diagrams showing the deformed shapes of eight generators of each specimen are presented at two or three stages of the creep buckling process. Inspection of the figures reveals that specimens of this kind either buckle axisymmetrically, or begin the creep buckling process in a axisymmetric manner but change over to a multilobed pattern in later stages of the deformations. (Author).