Tensile stability of cylindrical membranes

The tensile stability of rotationally symmetric thin membranes composed of isotropic, incompressible and elastic materials is considered by investigating under what conditions the initial equilibrium configuration can bifurcate to another rotationally symmetric equilibrium mode.The general equilibrium equations of a rotationally symmetric membrane are first derived in cylindrical coordinates. The initially cylindrical membrane is studied. The classic solution, which assumes homogeneous deformations, is shown to be a special case of the general equations. Perturbation theory is employed to find the bifurcation points from the homogeneous mode.This study shows that, for the chosen boundary conditions, no rotationally symmetric equilibrium mode exists near the cylindrical mode except the cylindrical mode itself. This corresponds to all experimental data that the author is aware of. The initially cylindrical membrane either remains cylindrical or goes into a non-rotationally symmetric mode.