From soda cans to space rockets, thin-walled cylindrical shells are abundant, offering exceptional load carrying capacity at relatively low weight. However, the actual load at which any shell buckles and collapses is very sensitive to imperceptible defects and cannot be predicted, which challenges the of such structures. Consequently, probabilistic descriptions in terms of empirical design rules are used and designing reliable structures requires the use of conservative strength estimates. We introduce a nonlinear description where finite-amplitude perturbations trigger buckling. Drawing from the analogy between imperfect shells which buckle and imperfect pipe flow which becomes turbulent, we experimentally show that lateral probing of cylindrical shells reveals their strength nondestructively. A new ridge-tracking method is applied to commercial cylinders with a hole showing that when the location where buckling nucleates is known we can accurately predict the buckling load of each individual shell, within $\pm 5\%$. Our study provides a new promising framework to understand shell buckling, and more generally, imperfection-sensitive instabilities.

中文翻译：

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不完善壳屈曲载荷的非破坏性预测

从汽水罐到太空火箭，薄壁圆柱壳非常丰富，以相对较低的重量提供了出色的承载能力。但是，任何壳体弯曲和塌陷的实际载荷对无法察觉的缺陷非常敏感，无法预测，这对这种结构提出了挑战。因此，使用了根据经验设计规则的概率描述，而设计可靠的结构需要使用保守的强度估算。我们引入了一种非线性描述，其中有限振幅扰动触发了屈曲。从不完全弯曲的壳和不完美的管道流动（湍流）之间的类比得出，我们通过实验表明，圆柱壳的横向探测无损地显示了它们的强度。$\pm 5％$。我们的研究提供了一个新的有前途的框架，以了解壳的屈曲，更广泛地理解不完美的不稳定性。