Static Bending of Isotropic Circular Cylindrical Shells Based on the Higher Order Shear Deformation Theory of Reddy and Liu

In this paper, a displacement based shear deformation theory formulated on the cubic in-plane displacement field equation of Reddy and Liu is presented for the static bending analysis of isotropic circular cylindrical shells. The adopted displacement field accounts for a quadratic (parabolic) distribution of the transverse shear through the shell thickness as well as satisfies the need for a stress free upper and lower boundary surfaces of the shell. The equations of static equilibrium are obtained on application of the principle of virtual work. Numerical results of the bending analysis for the displacements and stresses are presented for the simply supported shell. A comparison made to those of the Kirchhoff-Love theory for varying shell length to mean – radius of curvature ratios, shows good agreement for thin shells irrespective of the shell length to radius of curvature ratio (l / a). The transverse sharing effect is found to be noticeable in the deformation of thick shells, however, this effect diminishes with a continuous increase in l / a ratios.