A Preliminary Study on Material Utilization of Stiffened Cylindrical Shells

Abstract: The stiffened cylindrical shell is used for legs of offshore platforms and pressure hull of submersibles frequently. The existing design methods only focus on the strength and stability of structural components. The aim of this study is to present a new criterion for design of stiffened cylindrical shells. As a reference, an un-stiffened cylindrical shell is taken into consideration. By fixing the main scale value of structure, changing the shell thickness, the dimensions and numbers of stiffeners, cylindrical shells with circumferential ribs are created. Then, the buckling analysis on the family of shells, which is the revolution of constant mass, is carried out by FEM. Based on moving least square method with interpolation conditions, the fitting surface of polynomial function is got by MATLAB simulation. Results of polynomial show the relationship between the material utilization of structure and the critical load under uniform external pressure