Effect of material discontinuity on the flanges of axially compressed cylinder

The aim of this paper was to examine the buckling behavior of axially compressed mild steel circular cylinder with introduced local material discontinuity on the flange of a percentage of the hoop length of the cylinder. The work was both experimental and numerical. The cylinders were made from welded mild steel plate and they had integral top and bottom with 10 mm thick flanges in them. The flange was fully welded to one end of the cylinder. Meanwhile, at the other end of the cylinder, material discontinuity was introduced. Five laboratory scaled cylinders were manufactured with nominal geometry given by R/t = 25.0, L/R = 2.24 and wall thickness, t = 2.0 mm. Numerical results were obtained using the ABAQUS finite element code. Results of the experimental tests and the accompanying numerical calculations of the load carrying capacity of the cylinders were provided with a special attention devoted to the effect of material discontinuity along the flange on the buckling behavior. There was a good agreement between the test data and the numerical predictions [(206.6 kN, 211.66 kN), (205.99 kN, 211.67 kN), (206.87 kN, 212.72 kN), (207.16 kN, 210.63 kN), (207.49 kN, 210.71 kN)]. It can be concluded that for an axially compressed cylinder with R/t = 25.0, the effect of material discontinuity on the flange on the buckling load of the cylinder was insignificant