Experimental and numerical buckling failure analysis of acrylic hemispheres for application in neutrino detector

The experimental and numerical methods were proposed to investigate the buckling failure behaviors of acrylic hemispheres under external pressure in this paper. The history of transient failure in the experiment was captured and recorded by a high-speed camera, which revealed the failure mode of acrylic hemispheres. Results showed that the critical buckling loads predicted by numerical buckling analysis were good agreement with experimental data. Lastly, the research results were applied into the stability design of an acrylic spherical vessel with the diameter of 35.5 m for China's Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) neutrino detector. A feasible scheme of the acrylic sphere was proposed to avoid buckling failure.