Dynamic Instability Characteristics of Spherical Panels Subjected to linearly varying In-plane Loading

The present paper reports the parametric instability phenomenon of spherical shell panels under linearly varying harmonic load employing finite element technique. An isoparametric curved element with eight nodes is considered in the formulation.. The sanders’ theory is used to model the spherical panel incorporating the properties of transverse shear and rotary inertia. A computer programme is created based on the formulation to carry out all essential calculations.The correctness of the formulation is established by comparing with results available in the literature.The impact of different parameters such as load factors, shallowness ratio on the instability regions of spherical panels with three support conditions such as SSSS (all edges simply supported), CCCC (all sides clamped) and CFCF (two opposite edges clamped and other two edges free) are studied. The study demonstrates that the parametric instability behavior of the spherical shell panels is significantly influenced by its shallowness parameter, boundary conditions and type of loads. These results will help the designers for deciding the dimensions of the spherical panels exposed to linearly varying periodic load at the time of the preliminary design.