Structural Similitude for Prestressed Vibration and Buckling of Eccentrically Stiffened Circular Cylindrical Panels and Shells by Energy Approach

The objective of this study is to develop and validate similitude requirements and scaling laws for studying the real characteristics of structures easily and economically, especially for large structures. The generalized similitude requirements and the scaling law of orthogonally stiffened cylindrical panels and shells for buckling and free vibration are derived by applying the similitude transformation to the total energy of the structural system directly. In practice, due to either the difficulty of satisfying all of the similitude requirements simultaneously or to save experimental cost and time, distorted models with partial similarity are necessarily employed and approximate scaling laws are proposed. The partial similitude is mainly investigated first by using specific formulas of stiffness parameters and corresponding scaling laws are given. Also discussed herein are particular models with relaxations in the material properties of stiffeners, the materials of both the skin and the sti r eners and the material properties and geometry. The obtained results indicate that the distorted models are able to accurately predict the behavior of the prototype.