5. Cylindrical Shells

Cylindrical shells are the simplest case of shells of revolution. A cylindrical shell is formed by revolving a straight line (generator) around an axis that is paralleled to the line itself. The surface obtained from the revolution of the generator defined the cylindrical shell’s middle surface. Cylindrical shells may have different geometrical shapes determined by the revolution routes and circumferential included angles. By appropriately selecting the revolution routes, cylindrical shells with desired cross-sections can be produced, such as circular, elliptic, rectangular, polygon, etc. In the literature and engineering applications, cylindrical shells with circular cross-sections are most frequently encountered. In this type of cylindrical shells, each point on the middle surface maintains a similar distance from the axis. The current chapter is devoted to dealing with closed and open circular cylindrical shells.