A University of Houston engineer has designed a model to guide better design of thin-walled structures, like planes, cars and submersibles, to avoid catastrophe like sudden collapse, from buckling.
Until now it's been impossible to accurately predict the detrimental effects of geometric imperfections, but Roberto Ballarini, Thomas and Laura Hsu Professor and department chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is changing that. He is reporting in thea theoretical equation, based on the results of computer simulations, that predicts the average buckling strength of a shell based on the parameters that describe the imperfections.
Ballarini added,"One must not forget that a structure's resistance to buckling failure is also affected by the strength and stiffness of the material from which it is made.""Its integrity may have been compromised by the damage to the material used for its hull that accumulated during the many trips it took prior to collapse. The material used for the Titan's hull was a carbon fiber composite.