Plastic buckling of complete toroidal shells of elliptical cross-section subjected to internal pressure

The plastic bifurcation buckling pressures of 60 internally-pressurised, perfect, complete toroidal shells of elliptical cross-section are given in the present paper, assuming elastic, perfectly plastic, material behaviour. The shell buckling programs employed in the computations were BOSOR 5 and INCA. Denoting the major-to-minor axis ratio by k, the numerical results show that the plastic buckling pressures are considerably lower than their elastic counterparts in the range 1.25≤k≤1.5 and are approximately equal to them for k=2.5. A limited study of the effects of non-axisymmetric initial geometric imperfections on the buckling pressures of the shells was also carried out using the INCA code. For the four cases studied the post-buckling behaviour was stable. This means that designers can use the buckling pressures given herein for perfect shells as a basis for their initial designs.