Shell stability analysis in a computer aided engineering (CAE) environment

The development of 'DISDECO', the Delft Interactive Shell DEsign COde is described. The purpose of this project is to make the accumulated theoretical, numerical and practical knowledge of the last 25 years or so readily accessible to users interested in the analysis of buckling sensitive structures. With this open ended, hierarchical, interactive computer code the user can access from his workstation successively programs of increasing complexity. The computational modules currently operational in DISDECO provide the prospective user with facilities to calculate the critical buckling loads of stiffened anisotropic shells under combined loading, to investigate the effects the various types of boundary conditions will have on the critical load, and to get a complete picture of the degrading effects the different shapes of possible initial imperfections might cause, all in one interactive session. Once a design is finalized, its collapse load can be verified by running a large refined model remotely from behind the workstation with one of the current generation 2-dimensional codes, with advanced capabilities to handle both geometric and material nonlinearities.