Buckling of multilayered metal domes

The paper provides results of a numerical and experimental investigation into static stability of externally pressurised hemispherical and torispherical domes. Hybrid wall of considered domes includes steel–aluminium, titanium–aluminium and copper–steel–copper configurations.Buckling/collapse tests were conducted on domes manufactured from copper–steel–copper layered material. Details are provided of manufacture of domes, pre-test measurements, testing, and the FE analysis of measured geometries of domes. Five pairs of laboratory scale domes were tested. Each pair had nominally identical geometry. Total wall thickness of copper–steel–copper domes was about 1.1 mm. Inner and outer layers were copper, each 0.05 mm thick. Both types of heads, i.e., hemispherical and torispherical were manufactured from flat sheets using spinning. The (radius-to-wall-thickness)-ratio, R/t, was in the range from 40 to 200. Two values of the (knuckle-radius-to-diameter)-ratio in torispheres were used, i.e., 10% and 17%. Single, quasi-static incremental loading was applied in all cases. The end of load carrying capacity was sudden and well defined. Values of experimental buckling pressures varied from 1.7 to 10 MPa.