Buckling design of axially compressed conical shells

In most shell buckling codes, guidance on the design of conical shells is usually restricted to unstiffened cones and even in this case the clauses are often based on the procedures for cylindrical shells. No guidance is generally offered on stiffened cones and the particular characteristics of conical shells are not treated in any detail. In this paper, use is made of finite element analysis to quantify critical elastic response and imperfection sensitivity through appropriate numerical models. The results are aimed at validating the existing ECCS design recommendations for unstiffened cones and at developing a design approach for stringer-stiffened cones.