Creep Buckling of a Complete Spherical Shell

The creep buckling behavior of a complete spherical shell which is subjected to a uniform external pressure is investigated using a perturbation method of analysis. The spherical shell has an arbitrary initial imperfect shape and is made from a material which creeps according to the generalized Norton’s law. It turns out that the critical mode number of the deformed profile is identical to that obtained previously by various authors for the linear elastic instability of complete spherical shells. It also appears that the resistance to creep buckling of complete spherical shells is greater than the resistance of a long cylindrical shell having the same R/h ratio and material properties.