Despite the frequent use of ring-stiffened cylinders as a submarine pressure hull or members of various types of offshore structure, their ultimate strength analysis methods have not been well established because of their complex structural characteristics. This paper has established the method how to use commercial softwares based on the finite element method to implement the ultimate strength analysis of ring-stiffened cylinders covering both types of initial imperfection, i.e. initial deformation and initial stress by combining two separately offered functions of common commercial finite element softwares, linear elastic buckling analysis and nonlinear stress analysis. Developed method was applied to one of the world-widely used commercial softwares. ABAQUS for the analysis of ring stiffened cylinders. This paper ends with some useful information about the imperfection sensitivity of ultimate strength ring stiffened cylinders.
