Effects of imperfection shapes on buckling of conical shells under compression

This paper describes a systematic numerical investigation into the nonlinear elastic behavior of conical shells, with various types of initial imperfections, subject to a uniformly distributed axial compression. Three different patterns of imperfections, including first axisymmetric linear bifurcation mode, first non-axisymmetric linear bifurcation mode, and weld depression are studied using geometrically nonlinear finite element analysis. Effects of each imperfection shape and tapering angle on imperfection sensitivity curves are investigated and the lower bound curve is determined. Finally, an empirical lower bound relation is proposed for hand calculation in the buckling design of conical shells.