On refined analysis of bifurcation buckling for the axially compressed circular cylinder

We present extensive numerical results of bifurcation buckling analysis of the axially compressed circular cylinder. The analysis is based on the modified displacement version of the non-linear theory of thin elastic shells developed by Opoka and Pietraszkiewicz [Opoka, S., Pietraszkiewicz, W., 2009. On modified displacement version of the non-linear theory of thin shells. International Journal of Solids and Structures, 46, 3103–3110.]. To solve the buckling problem we apply the separation of variables and expansion of all fields into Fourier series in circumferential direction, with subsequent accurate calculations of eigenvalues of determinants of corresponding 8 × 8 complicated matrices. The numerical analysis of the buckling load is performed for the cylinders with length-to-diameter ratio in the range (0.05, 60), with eight sets of incremental work-conjugate boundary conditions analogous to those used in the literature and partly summarized in the book by Yamaki [Yamaki, N., 1984. Elastic Stability of Circular Cylindrical Shells. Elsevier, Amsterdam], and additionally with six sets of boundary conditions not discussed in the literature yet. The results allow us to formulate several important conclusions, such as: (a) omission in the non-linear BVP small terms of the order of error introduced by the error of constitutive equations leads to overestimated buckling loads for long cylinders with clamped boundaries; (b) for some relaxed boundary conditions the buckling load decreases for short cylinders with decrease of the cylinder length; (c) the results for additional six sets of boundary conditions reveal existence of several new cases, in which by relaxing geometric boundary conditions the buckling load falls down to about one half of the classical value in a wide range of the cylinder length-to-diameter ratios.