Plastic Buckling of Axially Compressed Cylinders: Correlation between Theory and Experiments

For an axially compressed cylinder, early experiments revealed that the experimental load is about 30% below the theoretical load. This paper aims to provide better comparison between experimental and theoretical data for cylinders subjected to axial compression through the appropriate experimental procedure. Ten cylinders (five steel and five aluminum) were made using different joining techniques. Two cylindrical geometric parameters were considered, they are : (i) thinness ratio (i. e., radius-to-thickness ratio, R/t) of 18.66 - 21.42, and (ii) slenderness ratio (i. e., length-to-radius ratio, L/R) of 1 - 5. All the specimens were manufactured from 2 mm flat plate. Comparison of results obtained from theory, simulation (ABAQUS FE) and experiments reveals that there is a good agreement in the magnitude of the load carrying capacity and deformed shape of the cylinders. The corresponding ratios varied here from 1.01 to 1.05 (steel cylinders), and from0.99 to 1.02 (aluminum cylinders). But the goodness of the comparison is observed to depend strongly on the material properties used and the clamping arrangement adopted during the experimentation.