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The purpose of this survey is to give a review of the methods and results of analytical and experimental investigations for stress concentrations in thin elastic shells subjected to static and dynamic loading. The increasing use of higher-strength materials in the design of pressure vessels, aircraft, ships, and nuclear reactors with high reliability necessitates more precise analyses in the regions of cutouts and concentrated loads.

The problem of stress concentration around cutouts in shells is an important one in the design of nuclear pressure vessels, boilers, pressure hulls of submarines, aircraft structures, pipe connections and tube and ball mills used in chemical industries. By using the finite-difference scheme suggested by Budiansky, the solution to the problem of a cylindrical shell without a cutout, subjected to an asymmetric load, is derived first. Then, the negatives of the stress resultants and stress couples at a given radius obtained from the above solution are combined with a transverse shear force to form the edge conditions for a circular cylindrical shell containing a circular cutout of radius a. The desired results are finally obtained by superposing these two solutions.

When used to measure near field pressures for purposes of prediction of mode shapes of vibrating structures, a microphone should be placed very close to the structure. Some theoretical and experimental studies are reported on the effect of the sensing area of the microphone on the sound pressure levels measured in the near field.