Blast loading of a cylindrical shell panel.

The present study is concerned with the dynamic behaviour of a shallow steel cylindrical shell subjected to an explosive blast. Although powerful numerical methods, such as the finite element method exist for the investigation of a multitude of problems in structural mechanics, a closed-form analytical method provides the researcher with a faster, cheaper, versatile and more practical tool of analysis. An analytical solution based on the Galerkin-Vlasov variational principle applied to the Donnell-Mushtari equations of motion is developed, with trial functions taken as the products of beam functions. This work represents the first use of this approach to time response problems in shell analysis for a wide variety of boundary conditions. Independent confirmation of the analytical method is provided by the finite element program ADINA. The effects of curvatures upon the linear dynamic response of sixteen types of support conditions are determined. A comparative study is carried out on the effect of removal of support conditions on the curved boundaries, in the linear and nonlinear domains, with numerical data provided by the ADINA program