Cylindrical Shells Made of Stainless Steel – Investigation of Postbuckling

The relevant load case of open thin-walled shells is often wind loading during construction. Because of the missing stabilization effect of the roof they show a very high sensitivity to buckling which results into higher wall thicknesses. As part of the European RFCS research project BiogaSS the Institute for Metal and Lightweight Structures of the University of Duisburg-Essen carried out investigations on open thin-walled tanks made of austenitic and duplex stainless steels under wind load to study a possible economic advantage which might be gained from the consideration of the elastic postbuckling behaviour. This contribution presents not only experimental and numerical results but also first recommendations regarding the range of possible buckling reduction factors which might be incorporated in future revisions of EN 1993-1-6 and EN 1993-4-2.