Eigenvalue analysis of cylindrically curved panels under compressive stresses – Extension of rules from EN 1993-1-5

• Past and current approaches for the elastic buckling coefficient of curved panels under compressive stresses (from pure compression to pure in-plane bending) are discussed.
• An extensive parametric study is performed and the critical behaviour of curved panels is fully described identifying relevant characteristics.
• Relevant parameters are identified and calibrated against numerical simulations.
• A proposal for computing the buckling coefficient of curved panels is developed maintaining the format of EN1993-1-5.

A numerical study on the elastic buckling behaviour of simply supported cylindrically curved panels, with longitudinal edges unconstrained and loaded edges constrained, including the influence of curvature, aspect ratio and loading type (from pure compression to full in-plane bending) is presented in this paper. Subsequently, an extension of rules for internal plated members’ critical stress calculation from EN 1993-1-5 is proposed that takes into account the effect of curvature. The proposed approach, based on the numerical results, gives a safe but accurate estimate (lower bound) for the elastic critical stress.