Junctions in shell structures: A review

•This is the complete review of the whole field “Junctions in shell structures”.•Theoretical, numerical, and experimental analyses of shell junctions are covered.•Different forms of boundary, continuity, and jump conditions are presented.•Specialised types of junctions appearing in multi-shell structures are discussed.•The results of each paper are characterised in the concise descriptive way.

Many shell structures used in modern technology consist of regular shell parts joined together along their common boundaries. We review different theoretical, numerical, and experimental approaches to modelling, analyses and design of the compound shell structures with junctions. Several alternative forms of boundary, continuity and jump conditions at the singular midsurface curves modelling the shell junction are reviewed. We also analyse the results obtained for special shell structures containing the cylinder–cylinder intersections, cone– , sphere– , and plate–cylinder junctions, tubular joints as well as other special types of junctions appearing in complex multi-shell structures.