Part of the fuselage of a B-52 showing many local skin buckles in a region where there is high in-plane shear loading

This photograph was emailed to David Bushnell by his nephew, Bo Ellis, on November 10, 2014.

It appears that the fuselage contains a very heavy cargo, the weight of which is reacted by significant overall shear loading at the axial station of the landing gear. The overall shear loading is absorbed by the skin of the fuselage, which has developed significant post-local-buckling diagonal tension between internal ribs and stringers.

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