Re: battery boxes

[Phil Nuytten <72020.572@compuserve.com>]

Hi, Jon:
        Arrrgghhh . .you're trying to use a postage stamp for an umbrella! 
Even if it did some little itsy-bitsy good in theory -  in practise you're
gonna get pretty wet! Likewise ,if you slide some rings over a cylindrical
hull and rely on them as stiffeners, you will also get wet ( and, possibly,
flat . .). Why wouldn't you  weld them?? I don't for one second concede
that the cylinder must 'get wider' to go into an asymetric buckling mode .
.we are not talking about machined cylinders and lapped rings - at the
point of plasticity, only a fraction of circumference  discontinuity will
propagate like lightning into a catastrophic  failure. The hull 'folds'
inwards. You are assumimg that there is some rigidity in the balance of the
hull when the buckling portion has turned plastic and yielded . .why?  You
ought to see some of the pressure housings that we've tested to destruction
- and see them fail! Often it's so quick that you miss it and you have to
look at the tapes in slow motion to see the failure process.    
        Must admit, tho', I don't know diddly-squat about the pressure
integrity of plastic coke bottles!! (G)

regards
Phil Nuytten