Buckling and collapse of cylinders with one end simply supported and

one end open with variable axial and flexural support, under lateral load
Rodney Pinna
The School of Oil & Gas Engineering, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia

ABSTRACT: Cylinders with open end simply supported and open and unsupported (SF boundary conditions)
have buckling loads which are lower than those of cylinders with more usual boundary conditions. SF cylinders also have collapse loads which are above their eigenvalue buckling load. This work examines the effect
on the buckling and collapse load of varying the axial and flexural restraint at the closed end of the cylinder,
for lateral load conditions. It is shown that as the restraint at the supported end is increased, the eigenvalue
buckling load increases, while the collapse behaviour of the cylinder reverts to a more typical cylindrical shell
behaviour, with the collapse load being sensitive to the presence of imperfections in the initial geometry.

Cylinders with one end open and the other end simply supported have been shown (Pinna, 2003) to
have behaviour which is relatively unusual. The
buckling load of shells with these boundary conditions may be considerably lower than that of cylinders with more typical boundary conditions, however, more unusually, the collapse load of such
cylinders may be above their eigenvalue buckling
load.
One such system where such boundary conditions
may occur is that of the suction caisson. These are a
form of foundation system used for offshore structures (Pinna, 2001, Tjelta, 2001). These essentially
consist of a cylinder, with one end open and the
other end closed. The closure may range from a very
stiff top plate, typically employed when the caisson
is used as a foundation for a jacket structure, to a
much more flexible structure, when the caisson is
used as an anchor for a catenary mooring system.
In the first of these cases, the boundary conditions
on the closed end of the cylinder may be approximated by a fully built in end. In the later case, the
restraint at the open end will be somewhat less and
will tend towards a simple support as a lower bound.
The major attraction of the suction caisson is the
ease of its installation. Installation is essentially a
three step process:
The caisson touches down on the sea bed
The caisson penetrates the seabed under self
weight, this typically penetrates the foundation to
between 5% and 30% of its length

The caisson is evacuated, allowing the ambient

water pressure to force the foundation into the
seabed.
Due to this installation sequence, the foundation
may be susceptible to buckling failure during both
stages of the installation sequence; during both the
self weight penetration when loading is predominately axial and during the pressure installation
phase, when combined loading with axial and lateral
components is present.
The combination of boundary conditions on a cylinder of a simply supported end and an open end has
not received much attention previously. Previous
work has explored cylinders with such boundary
conditions under axial, combined and lateral loading
(Ronalds & Pinna 20003, Pinna & Ronalds, 2003)
1.E+04

1.E+02
SS cyl.

kh

1 INTRODUCTION

1.E+00

SF cyl.

Plate
solution
Long shell

1.E-02
1.E-01

1.E+01

1.E+03

1.E+05

1.E+07

Z
Figure 1. Comparison of buckling loads for SS and SF cylinders against standard solutions.

Table 1. Various definitions for a simply supported end for a

cylindrical shell., where u, v, and w are the displacements components in the radial, circumferential and axial directions respectively. Nxx and Nx are stress resultant terms. The designation follows that of Hoff and Soon (1965).
Designation
Restrained degree of freedom
S1

w = 2 w x 2 = N xx = N x = 0

S2

w = u = 2 w x 2 = N x = 0

S3

w = 2 w x 2 = N xx = v = 0

S4

w = 2 w x 2 = u = v = 0

and for the axial load case with varying amounts of

axial restraint at the supported end (Pinna, 2003a, b).
In the former case, it was shown that simply support
free cylinders buckle at lower than usual loads
(Fig. 1). From this Figure, it may also be seen that
SF cylinders behave in a qualitatively different way
to SS cylinders; while SS cylinders diverge from the
long shell solution at Z 1105, where Z is defined
in equation (1) below. SF cylinders follow the long
shell solution until much lower values of Z and only
diverge away for very short shells.
In Pinna (2004), it was shown that as the amount
of axial restraint is increased, the buckling load increases dramatically, but the unusual imperfection
sensitivity which is present for the SF cylinder with
no additional restraint is found to disappear.
The present work extends this analysis by examining the theoretically important case of lateral loading when the supported end has varying axial restraint. This paper also examines the influence of
varying flexural restraint on the buckling and collapse behaviour. Results are found using nonlinear
finite element analysis.
2 METHODOLOGY
2.1 Finite element model
Results in this paper were found from finite element
analysis, using ABAQUS/STANDARD (Hibbert et
al. 2003). The cylinders were modelled using
meshes consisting of 9 noded, thin shell elements,
employing reduced integration, i.e. S9R5 elements
in ABAQUS notation. These elements enforce the
Kirchoff constraints numerically, and are appropriate for small strains, but large deformations and rotations. They employ strain measures which are approximations to KoiterSanders theory strains.
Eigenvalues are calculated from an initially unperturbed state. To verify the results from the S9R5 elements, a number of eigenvalues were also found
from models using solid elements. Results have also
been compared to those from a variational solution
using the Donnell equations and show the S9R5
elements performs well (Pinna & Ronalds, 2003).

Two types of analysis were carried out; first, an

elastic eigenvalue analysis of the soil/structure system was performed to determine the critical buckling
mode of the system. This eigenmode was then imposed on the geometry of the perfect structure, and a
nonlinear Riks analysis undertaken. Nonlinear behaviour was allowed for in both the material properties and by accounting for the deformed geometry of
the system. An imperfection in the shape of the critical eigenmode generally results in the largest decrease in peak load (Guggenberger, 1995). The eigenmode was scaled such that the maximum lateral
deviation was equal to the shell thickness.

2.2 Boundary conditions

Unlike beams, a number of definitions of a simply
supported end are possible for a cylindrical shell.
These are shown in Table 1. The set of boundary
conditions matches the definition of a classical
simple support for a cylinder, and is the definition
used in this article when such a boundary condition
is referred to.
To model the pinned end of the shell, the displacement components in the radial and tangential
directions are fixed, as are rotations about the radial
and axial directions. The varying restraint at the
supported end was modelled using either axial or rotational springs, with linear behaviour.
2.3 Loading
Loading was applied to the cylinder as a lateral load,
using the ABAQUS DLOAD routine. This load routine in ABAQUS includes follower load effects,
which are important for buckling in modes with a
low number of circumferential waves (n).
2.4 Materials
Typical high strength steel properties were used in
the finite element model, with E=210 GPa, =0.3
and yield=340 MPa. The yield strength of the steel
was modelled using a von Mises criterion.
2.5 Geometry
The geometry of cylindrical shells is commonly described using the nondimensional Batdorf Z parameter, where:
L2
Z=
1 2
rt

(1)

In the present analysis, eigenbuckling loads are

found for cylinders with Z=10, 100 and 1000, while
nonlinear collapse analysis is carried out on the cyl-

inder with Z=100. This represents a cylinder of intermediate length. For all cylinders, r/t=100.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Bifurcation analysis
Bifurcation buckling results from the present analysis are shown in Figure 2, for varying amounts of axial restraint, and in Figure 3 for varying flexural restraint . It may be seen that in both cases, increasing
the restraint at the closed end results in a significant
increase in the buckling strength of the cylinder.
Both graphs show three results: the result for the
SF cylinder with varying restraint, and the solutions
for a SS and CF cylinder. The solutions for all these
cylinders are expressed in terms of the buckling coefficient, which is related to the buckling stress by:
16.00

L2 h
h
2D

(2)

where D is the usual expression for the bending

stiffness of the cylinder.
It is known that for most sets of boundary conditions the buckling loads of intermediate length cylinders with differing boundary conditions may be related to the SS case through a constant multiplier
(Ronalds & Pinna, 2003). For a CF cylinder, the
buckling load is 0.58 times that of an SS cylinder.
From the figures, it may be seen that axial restraint has the largest influence on the bifurcation
load. With fully effective axial restraint, the bifurcation load approaches that of the CF cylinder. This
behaviour is similar to that of a SF cylinder under
axial load, with axial restraint. For that case, it has
also been shown that the buckling load approaches
that of a semi-infinite cylinder with one free end
(Pinna, 2004).
Restraining the flexural degree of freedom has
less effect on the cylinder buckling load. This re-

SS cylinder

12.00

kh

kh =

8.00

CF cylinder

4.00

SF cylinder

0.00
1.E-01

1.E+02

1.E+05

1.E+08

1.E+11

Spring restraint (N/m)

Figure 2. Variation in eigenvalue buckling load with changing
axial spring stiffness.
16.00

SS cylinder

kh

12.00

8.00

CF cylinder

4.00

SF cylinder
0.00
1.E-01

1.E+02

1.E+05

1.E+08

1.E+11

Spring restraint (Nm/rad)

Figure 3. Variation in eigenvalue buckling load with changing

flexural spring stiffness.

Figure 4. Effect on varying the degree of axial restraint on the

cylinder buckling mode. Restraint values are 0, 1108 and
11013 N/m.

Flexural spring restraint

110-1
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
11010
11011
11012

kh
0.639
0.639
0.639
0.639
0.645
0.699
1.065
1.603
1.910
2.074
2.124
2.141
2.149
2.150

n
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3

1.6
1.4
1.2

P/Pcr

1108

0.8
0.6

11012

0.4
0.2
0
0

10

wo

20

30

20

30

1.6
1.4
1.2

P/Pcr

Table 2. The effect of varying axial and flexural restraint on

buckling load and mode.
Axial spring restraint
kh
n
110-1
0.639
2
1100
0.639
2
0.639
2
1101
1102
0.639
2
1103
0.647
2
0.721
2
1104
1105
1.277
3
1106
1.820
3
2.939
4
1107
1108
4.699
6
1109
5.821
6
6.227
6
11010
11011
6.280
6
11012
6.286
6

0.8

1108

0.6
0.4

11013

0.2
0

flects what is know for SS cylinders under lateral

load, where the largest influence on buckling is the
degree of restraint on the axial freedom.
The influence on the behaviour of the cylinder is
also shown in Figure 4, where the buckling mode of
the cylinder is shown for varying amounts of axial
restraint. In particular, it may be seen that the degree
of axial deflection decreases substantially as the
amount of restraint is increased. These results are
also summarised in Table 2, where results for varying flexural restraint are also given. It may be seen
that the change in the number of circumferential
buckling waves (n) is much less, reflecting the
smaller influence that this restraint has on the buckling load.
These results show that the buckling strength of
the cylinder increase 9.83 times going from none to
fully effective axial restraint, and by 3.36 times for
flexural restraint. This difference is not as great as
that for SF cylinder under axial load, where the difference may be in the order of two magnitudes. This
difference may be explained by the difference in behaviour of SF cylinders with and without an axial
load component.
SF cylinders without an axial load component,
that is under pure lateral load, asymptote towards a
buckling load of kh=0.426, as Z tends towards 0.
This corresponds to the solution for a hinged outstand under uniform axial compression (Ronalds &

10

wo

Figure 5. Behaviour of cylinders in terms of the normalised

lateral load acting on the cylinder. The upper plot shows varying flexural restraint, while the lower plot shows varying axial
restraint. The value next to each curve denotes the spring constant used for the analysis.

Chapman, 1991). This reflects that under lateral

load, the SF cylinder is able to resist buckling
through its torsional rigidity. In contrast, under axial
load, SF cylinders act as a mechanism and continue
to follow the long shell solution, which is much
lower than the value that low Z SS cylinders asymptote towards.
3.2 Collapse results
The results from the nonlinear collapse analysis
conducted on the cylinders is shown in Figure 5 for
cylinders with both axial and flexural restraint, under lateral load. This Figure shown the results in
terms of the lateral load normalised by the buckling
load of the cylinder. The load is plotted against the
maximum inwards lateral displacement of the cylinder, which has been normalised by the shell wall
thickness.
From these results it may be seen that the influence of varying either axial or flexural restraint
is similar, in that for both situations the imperfec-

3.E+05

11012

3.E+05

1108

2.E+05

P (N)

tion sensitivity of the system increases as the restraint is increased. This sensitivity is also shown
in Figure 6, where the P/Pcr is plotted against the
varying spring stiffness value. The typical knockdown factor of 0.6 which is used for laterally
loaded cylinders is also plotted in this Figure.
In these plots, it may be seen that as the stiffness increases, and the eigenbuckling mode moves
away from the n = 2 value, sensitivities change
from showing a collapse load above the eigenvalue buckling load to returning to more usual
values. For large restraint, where the eigenvalue
buckling load is closer to that of cylinders with
stiffer restraint and n > 2, the sensitivity returns to
values which are typically associated with cylinders which have a lateral load component.
The collapse strength may also be plotted in
terms of the absolute load applied to the cylinder,
as is done in Figure 7. From this Figure, it my be

2.E+05
1.E+05

5.E+04
0.E+00
0

10

wo

20

30

20

30

7.E+05
6.E+05

1.6
5.E+05

P (N)

1.4
1.2

P/Pcr

3.E+05

0.8

2.E+05

0.6

1.E+05

0.4

11013

4.E+05

1108

0.E+00

0.2

0
1.0E-02 1.0E+01 1.0E+04 1.0E+07 1.0E+10

Spring restraint (N/m)

10

wo

Figure 7. Behaviour of cylinders in terms of the total lateral load acting on the cylinder. The upper plot shows
varying flexural restraint, while the lower plot shows varying axial restraint. The value next to each curve denotes the
spring constant used for the analysis. The order of the Figures corresponds to Figure 5.

1.6
1.4
1.2

P/Pcr

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.01

10

10000

1E+07

1E+10

1E+13

Spring restraint (Nm/rad)

Figure 6. Sensitivity of cylinder against changing spring

restraint value. Upper plot for varying axial restraint, lower
plot for varying flexural restraint

seen that in terms of absolute load SF cylinders

with stiff restraint collapse at loads which are
much greater than those of SF cylinders. This reflects that the buckling load for SF cylinders is
relatively low, so that even with a knockdown
factor greater than 1 applied to the load, it is still
relatively small.
The behaviour of the SF cylinder with no restraint may be seen to be somewhat different to
that of the other two cylinders; rather than reaching a clear peak and then falling away, it instead
steadily increases to a maximum point. While it is
difficult to see from the plot, some reduction in
load from the peak is present before the analysis
terminates.
The sensitivity of a SF cylinder with no axial
or flexural restraint is studied in Figure 8. In this
plot the size of the initial imperfection has been
varies from 0.1 of the wall thickness to 5 times the
wall thickness. From this result it can be seen that

sociated with a change in the location of buckling

waves around the cylinder. Collapse remains in an
n = 2 mode.

1.6
1.4

0.5

1.2

0.1

4 CONCLUSIONS

P/Pcr

1
0.8

1
0.6
0.4

0.2
0
0

10

20

wo

30

Figure 8. Load deflection plots of cylinders with varying

imperfection size. Numbers next to each trace indicate the
imperfection as a multiple of the cylinder wall thickness.
1.6
1.4
1.2

P/Pcr

1
0.8
0.6

Buckling of intermediate length SF cylinders with

no additional axial or flexural restraint at the simply
supported end have been shown to have a number of
features in common cylinders with the same boundary conditions under other load conditions. In particular, these features are low bifurcation buckling
loads, and an insensitivity to the presence of initial
geometric imperfections. In the case of SF laterally
loaded cylinders, the reduction in buckling load is
not as great as that for SF cylinders under loading
with an axial component, as the lateral load is able to
be resisted through the torsional stiffness of the cylinder.
As with other loading conditions, it is shown that
increasing restraint at the simply supported end results in an increase in the buckling load. For the present case, with fully effective axial restraint, the
buckling load approaches that of an open ended cylinder with a clamped end. With increasing restraint
it is shown that the imperfection sensitivity returns
to levels the same as those of shells with traditional
boundary conditions.

0.4

5 REFERENCES

0.2
0
0

Imperfection size w 0
Figure 9. Sensitivity of collapse load of a SF cylinder as the
initial imperfection size is varied.

the collapse load of an SF cylinder is not sensitive

to the magnitude of the initial imperfection. This
result is also suggest by the shape of the load deflection curve in Figure 7. The relatively soft
collapse behaviour is typically associated with
low sensitivity to initial geometric imperfections.
A plot of the load deflection behaviour for a PF
cylinder with no axial or flexural restraint is
shown in Figure 8, with the maximum points
shown in Figure 9. From this Figure, it may be
seen that the behaviour of the cylinders is relatively consistent; as he size of the initial imperfection is increased, the response of the cylinder becomes more flexible. The change in peak load is
fairly insensitive to the presence of imperfection
however.
The load-displacement curves for the low stiffness cylinder show a nonuniform displacement response. The nonuniformity of this response is as-

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