Large deflection and buckling behaviour of a spherical shell with inward point load and uniform external pressure

Abstract

The large deflection of a spherical shell loaded with an inward radial point load and a uniform external pressure is investigated by supposing that the shell suffers small deflections from two known exact solutions to the equations for large deflection. These two exact solutions being of a segment whose curvature is completely reversed, for the region in the neighbourhood of the point of application of the point load, and of an unstressed sphere for the remainder of the shell.