Analysis and optimum design of axisymmetric plates and shells

This thesis deals with the development of reliable and efficient computational tools to analyze and find optimum shapes of axisymmetric plates and shells in static, free vibration and buckling situations. The finite element method is used to determine the stresses, displacements, natural frequencies and critical buckling loads based on Mindlin-Reissner shell theory. An automated analysis and optimization procedure is adopted which integrates finite element analysis, parametric cubic spline geometry definition, automatic mesh generation, sensitivity analysis and mathematical programming methods.Key words: Axisymmetric plates and shells, static analysis, free vibration analysis, buckling analysis, shape optimization.