Buckling of thick elasto-visco-plastic egg shells under external pressure: Experiments and bifurcation analysis

International audience; The buckling of rate dependent structures is not a topic often discussed in the literature. Methods to predict the buckling of such structures exist, but only few experimental works have been published, and even less when considering thick shell structures. In this work we are interested in the buckling of thick elasto-visco-plastic hemi-egg shells. We follow a modeling/experimental approach to analyse such problem. Buckling experiments at room temperature on hemi-egg shells subjected to external pressure are performed. 3D digital image correlation is used to measure the displacement fields on the inner surface of the hemi-egg shell during the buckling experiments. Due to the specimen shape and their loading, they experience non-proportional load paths. The effect of a non-proportional load path on the buckling behaviour has already been discussed many times in the literature for elasto-plastic materials. This work also intends to assess this point for a rate dependent material. A buckling prediction model is used to predict the buckling of hemi-egg shells. This model couples Bodner's approach with the deformation theory. It is used to estimate the buckling critical times and the buckling modes based on a preliminary finite element analysis. The effects of geometrical and loading imperfections on the buckling behaviour of the hemi-egg shells are also discussed. Finally, the experimental results are compared to the buckling predictions. A good correlation is observed between numerical results and experiments.