Creep buckling and postbuckling of circular cylindrical shells under axial compression

An infinitely long, axially compressed, circular cylindrical shell with an imperfection in the shape of the axisymmetric classical buckling mode, undergoing steady or non-steady creep, is analyzed. The axisymmetric problem is solved incrementally using nonlinear shell equations The ratio of the applied stress to the classical buckling stress determines if the shell will collapse axisymmetrically or if it will bifurcate into a nonaxisymmetric mode, and whether or not bifurcation will result in instantaneous collapse. The bifurcation problem is formulated exactly and the initial postbuckling behavior is investigated via an asymptotic elastic analysis, based on Koiter's general theory Numerical results are compared with available experimental data.