Peripheral Deformation and Buckling of Stainless Steel Hemispherical Shells Compressed by a Flat Plate

Abstract An experimental investigation was performed on stainless steel hemispherical shells under axial compression. Eight kinds of shells with radius-to-thickness ratios that range from 57.1 to 125 were designed and manufactured for this study. The shells were compressed to more than 50% of their radii by a solid flat plate. To avoid contact between the base plate and the deformed central part of the shells, most of the shells were placed on a plate with a hole in the center. Nonetheless, one type of shell was placed on a solid base plate without a hole to analyze the effect of the base plat...