The dynamic responses of cylindrical shells including geometric and material nonlinearities

The methods of finite-element analysis are applied to the problem of large deflection elastic-plastic dynamic responses of cylindrical shells to transient loading. Assumeddisplacement quadrilateral finite-elements of a cylindrical panel are used to idealize the cylindrical shell structure. The formulation is based upon the Principle of Virtual Work and D'Alembert's Principle. A direct numerical integration procedure is employed to solve the resulting equations of motion timewise. The present predicted dynamic responses of an explosively-loaded clamped cylindrical panel are compared with other independent predictions and with experimentally measured responses; very good agreement is observed.