Nonlinear behavior and buckling of cylindrical shells subjected to localized external pressure

Buckling loads and postbuckling behavior of cylindrical shells subjected to localized external pressure are considered. The modified extended Kantorovich method with path-tracing technique is applied to determine the buckling loads of the cylindrical shells. It is found that the load is dependent nonmonotonically on geometrical parameters of the area subjected to external pressure. Respective postbuckling shapes show correlation with the shapes corresponding to secondary bifurcation paths for the cases of a cylindrical shell under uniform external pressure and a cylindrical shell under uniform axial load.