Stochastic analysis of geometrically imperfect thin cylindrical shells using topology-aware uncertainty models

Buckling of thin-shell structures is one of the most canonical problems in mechanics. In practice, the buckling load and its deviation from theoretical prediction is often handled through the development of knock-down factors in shell structure design. Uncertainty-informed analysis based design is an alternative path that has been aggressively pursued in recent years. In this study, we use a novel representation of the stochastically imperfect shell geometry to investigate the buckling behavior of imperfect cylindrical shells. The representations rest on a non-Gaussian random field model, obtained by translating a latent Gaussian field defined as the solution to a stochastic partial differential equation and allows for the construction of topology-aware spatially correlated imperfections on nonconvex domains. We perform finite element analysis of buckling for imperfect shells and gain new insights into how the interplay between random imperfections and topological features influences buckling behavior.