Relatively simple and fast method for calculating critical uniform external pressure of steel cylindrical shell structure

In P. R. China, the method of Ref.3, whose third author is the first author of this paper, has been commonly accepted for computing critical uniform external pressure of steel cylindrical pipes needed in construction of large-scale hydro-electric power projects; but Ref. 3's method is too complex and time-consuming. We now present a method that is relatively simple and fast. In the full paper, we discuss in detail the advantages of neural network (NN) and genetic algorithm (GA) and then propose our relatively simple and fast method that combines GA with NN. In the full paper, we explain our GA-NN model and method in much detail, here we just list two topics we discuss in the full paper: (1) GA-NN algorithm as applied to the analysis of critical uniform external pressure of steel cylindrical shell structure; (2) six GA operations. Finally we give a numerical example of a manganese steel pipe 4.2 m in outside diameter and 0.1 m in thickness, the critical uniform external pressure, as computed by the complex and time-consuming method of Ref.3, is 0.483 MPa; as computed by our relatively simple and fast method, it is 0.478 MPa.