Abstract: The simulation result of cylindrical shells under external pressure is influenced greatly by different initial geometric deviation. Two forms of initial geometric deviations i.e., the first-order buckling mode of shell and the Fourier series representation, are briefly introduced. A simplified method of Fourier series is developed according to circumferential wave l(2-8), initial phase angle 12-18 and 5 groups initial geometric deviations data. According to the basic dimension, maximum initial geometric deviation, elastic modulus and yield strength of cylindrical shells in the existing reference, simplified Fourier series and first-order buckling mode method are applied to describe the initial geometric deviations of cylindrical shells in the double nonlinear buckling simulation, bilinear material model is adopted to the constitutive relation of materials. The results are discussed and the values regarding the buckling pressure obtained by the simulation are compared with those from experiments reported in reference. The results show that the values of buckling pressure obtained by first-order buckling mode method are generally smaller than the experimental values, and the results obtained by the simplified Fourier series method are in good agreement with the experimental values in the reference. This illustrates that the initial geometric deviations of cylindrical shells can be better expressed by the simplified Fourier series.

Key words: cylindrical shells, Fourier series, initial geometric deviations, simulation