Effect of friction on the buckling behavior of shallow spherical shells contacting with rigid walls

This paper investigates the effect of friction on the buckling behavior of a thin, shallow, elastic spherical shell under uniform external pressure based on an axisymmetric model of the finite element method. The study examines a combination of different geometric parameters with three different types of boundary conditions: clamped, hinged, and frictional ends with a wide range of friction coefficients. Friction has a significant influence on the buckling response of the spherical shell for all geometric parameters. In general, the critical pressure decreases as the friction coefficient or geometric parameter decreases. The buckling behavior of the frictional end with small friction coefficients presents an obvious difference compared to the results of high coefficients. For certain geometric parameters, the buckling mode of the spherical shell is transited because of changing the friction coefficient. A buckling map that describes the dependence of critical pressure on both friction coefficient and geometric parameter combined with buckling mode is generated. This map can be applied to the design of the spherical shell against buckling.