COMPARISON OF AXIALLY SYMMETRICAL CYLINDRICAL WALLS ANALYSIS RESULTS WITH DIFFRENT METHODS

Shells, which are being used frequently in functionally important structures, are among mathematically and geometrically complex structural systems in the sense of exact solutions. this complication leads to making assumptions or searching alternative solution approaches, in solving shell structures’ mathematical expressions. differential equations of beams on elastic foundations and cylindrical shells, which constitute a special type of shell structures, are similar. by using this similarity, it is possible to make the analysis of cylindrical shells. one of the methods used in analyzing beams on elastic foundations is the superposition method, which is developed by hetenyi [1]. in this study, the analysis of cylindrical shells under the axially symmetrical distributed loads, is made by using the superposition method. it is investigated that the differences which occurred in the analysis of long and short cylindrical walls hold different support conditions, in case of being out of the limit of the validity of long cylindrical wall assumption. in accordance with this purpose, the analyses results of superposition method are compared to, classical shell theory with two unknown variables. in addition to this, finite element method analyses are made for all studies. in the present study, an algorithm is developed in order to make the analyses with the superposition method, and a computer program based on this algorithm is developed.