Plastic Analysis of Shallow Spherical Shells

Rigid-plastic yielding and postyielding of pressurized shallow spherical shells is consid-ered. The analysis includes the contribution of the transverse shear to yielding. Two ap-proximate numerical solutions are given for several shell configurations. The yield sur-face used is based on the von Mises criterion. The results show that the effects of geome-try changes lead to "geometrical strengthening " and "geometrical weakening " of the shallow shells. Introduct ion In classical limit analysis theory it is assumed that the defor-mations are small when compared to the shell thickness. It is also assumed that at the yield point load, when uncontained plastic flow begins, the load intensity remains constant. It is known that the actual load-carrying capacity of shells differs significantly from the results based on classical limit analysis theory. For this reason it is important to study the effect of geometry changes on the yield point load of shells