Detecting how a cutout affects the critical buckling load in circular cylindrical shell is a serious issue for the design of the shells used in marine structures, aerospace and automobile applications. In this paper, buckling behavior of aluminum cylindrical shell with rectangular cutout, subjected to axial pressure was studied by means of finite element simulations. The effects of geometric parameters (R, t, a, b and L) on the first buckling mode capacity of the shell were studied. The effects of these factors and their interaction effects were investigated by combined numerical and statistical analysis. The results show that R/b, t and Rt/b were the main effective factors of critical buckling load. Based on the statistical analysis, a model for prediction of the critical buckling load was obtained with an accuracy equal to 95% (R2, R2 (pred) and R2 (adj)). This equation could be used to predict the critical buckling load of an isotropic circular shell with a rectangular cutout.

An analytical and numerical solution is developed for a transient heat conduction equation in which a plane slab is heated by a bimodal distribution beam over the upper surface. In laser heat treatment of steel few methods are used to produce a wider and nearly uniform average irradiance profile. This may be achieved by a bimodal (TEM11) shaped laser beam. In this paper, Green function method is employed to derive an analytical solution for thermal field distribution induced by laser forming process. Then 3-D finite element modeling of a slab in the ANSYS code is used to model the thermal field of laser forming with bimodal beam distribution. The results show that bimodal beam is useful for obtaining a uniform heat intensity distribution.