Thin shells are very popular structures in many different branches of engineering. There are the domes, water and cooling towers, the contain­ ments in civil engineering, the pressure vessels and pipes in mechanical and nuclear engineering, storage tanks and platform components in marine and offshore engineering, the car bodies in the automobile industry, planes, rockets and space structures in aeronautical engineering, to mention only a few examples of the broad spectrum of application. In addition there is the large applied mechanics group involved in all the computational and experimental work in this area. Thin shells are in a way optimal structures. They play the role of·the "primadonnas" among all kinds of structures. Their performance can be extraordinary, but they can also be very sensitive. The susceptibility to buckling is a typical example. David Bushnell says in his recent review paper entitled "Buckling of Shells - Pitfall for DeSigners": "To the layman buckling is a mysterious, perhaps even awe inspiring phenomenon that transforms objects originally imbued with symmetrical beauty into junk".

I: Theoretical Concepts¿Numerical Methods.- The Application of the Initial Post-Buckling Analysis to Shells.- Nonlinear Behavior and Elastic Stability of Shells¿Theoretical Concepts¿Numerical Computations¿Results.- The Natural Method: Simple and Elegant.- Different Levels of Nonlinear Shell Theory in Finite Element Stability Analysis.- Analysis of Elastic¿Plastic Buckling and Imperfection-Sensitivity of Shells of Revolution.- Postbuckling Instability Analysis of Shells Using the Mixed Method.- The Displacement Finite Element Method in Nonlinear Buckling Analysis of Shells.- II: Cylindrical Shells.- Buckling of Orthogonally Stiffened Cylindrical Shells Used in Offshore Engineering.- The Buckling of thin Ring¿Stiffened Shells.- Buckling of Wind Loaded Cylindrical Shells¿Application to Unstiffened and Ringstiffened Tanks.- Buckling of Long Liquid¿Filled Cylindrical Shells.- III: Conical and Spherical Shells.- Buckling of thin Conical Shells under Axial Loads with and Without Internal Pressure.- Experimental Investigation of Buckling of Hydrostatically Loaded, Conical Shells and Practical Evaluation of the Buckling Load.- Buckling of Complete Spherical Shells and Spherical Caps.- IV: Torispherical and Hyperboloidal Shells.- The Buckling of Fabricated Torispherical Shells under Internal Pressure.- Buckling Stresses of Shells Having Negative Gaussian Curvature.- Buckling of Hyperbolic Paraboloid Shells.- V: Experiments¿Dynamics.- The Status of Experimental Buckling Investigations of Shells.- The Imperfection Databank, A Mean to obtain Realistic Buckling Loads.- The Stability of Liquid¿Filled Cylindrical Shells under Dynamic Loading.- VI: Codes and Practice.- To the Problem of Buckling Safety of Shells in the Plastic Range.- Practical Analysis Methods for Design of Circular Cylinders with Longitudinal Stiffeners and Subjected to Axial Compression.- The Stability of thin Concrete Shells.