The Elastic-Plastic Response of Thin Spherical Shells to Internal Blast Loading

In this paper, the theory is developed for the elastic-plastic response of a thin spherical shell to spherically symmetric internal transient pressure loading. Analytic solutions are obtained to the linear, small-deflection equations of motion for shell materials which exhibit various degrees of strain-hardening. Numerical solutions obtained by digital computer are also presented for the equations for large deflections obtained by accounting for shell thinning and increase in radius during deformation. The theory is compared with experiment, and is shown to be in good agreement.