Plastic Analysis of Shallow Spherical Shells

Rigid-plastic yielding and postyielding of pressurized shallow spherical shells is considered. The analysis includes the contribution of the transverse shear to yielding. Two approximate numerical solutions are given for several shell configurations. The yield surface used is based on the von Mises criterion. The results show that the effects of geometry changes lead to “geometrical strengthening” and “geometrical weakening” of the shallow shells.