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George Gerard

Publications and source records attributed to George Gerard.

Collected Papers on Instability of Shell Structures - 1962

Shell structures are important components of airplanes, missiles, and space vehicles, but present capabilities for predicting the local and general instability of many such structures are inadequate. A large effort continues to be devoted to the stability analysis of shell structures, and considerable progress has been made. Results are slowly disseminated, however, and many engaged in research are not fully cognizant of the problems and practices of the vehicle designers who utilize research results. Therefore, an NASA SYMPOSIUM ON INSTABILITY OF SKELL STRUCTURES was organized by the Langley Research Center with sessions held there on October 24 and 25, 1962. Participants were limited to persons contributing papers and to certain officials of the U.S. Government. This symposium was planned to provide those persons concerned with shell instability at research laboratories, at educational institutions, and in the aerospace industry with a comprehensive view of the present state of the art, including the voids in present knowledge, important current problems, and the most fruitful directions for future theoretical and experimental research on the instability of all types of shell structures. Individuals actively engaged in research on shell stability or design were invited to contribute written papers for inclusion in a compilation to be distributed to the participants prior to the symposium. A few papers were selected by a steering committee for oral presentation at the symposium. Provision was made, also, for a discussion of all papers.

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Elastic and Plastic Stability of Orthotropic Cylinders

By utilizing linear stability theory, solutions for elastic buckling of short and moderate length orthotropic cylinders under axial compression are presented and correlated with experimental results on circumferentially stiffened cylinders. The plastic buckling of short and moderate length isotropic and orthotropic cylinders is also investigated and the theoretical results correlated with available experimental data. A discussion of the effects of finite deflection and initial imperfection is presented in order to explain the correlation obtained between the theory and the experimental data.

ELASTIC BUCKLING↗