Compression of solid and annular circular discs bonded to rigid surfaces

Although it is noted in the literature that the presence of a central hole in an elastic layer bonded to rigid surfaces can cause significant drop in its compression modulus, not much attention is given for investigating thoroughly and in detail the influence of the hole on the layer behavior. This paper presents analytical solutions to the problem of the uniform compression of bonded hollow circular elastic layers, which includes solid circular layers as a special case as the radius of hollow section vanishes. The closed-form expressions derived in this study are advanced in the sense that three of the commonly used assumptions in the analysis of bonded elastic layers are eliminated: (i) the incompressibility assumption, (ii) the “pressure” assumption and (iii) the assumption that plane sections remain plane after deformation. Through the use of the analytical solutions derived in the study, the compressive behavior of bonded circular discs is studied. Particular emphasis is given to the investigation of the effects of the existence of a central hole on the compression modulus, stress distributions and maximum stresses/strains in view of three key parameters: radius ratio of the hole, aspect ratio of the disc and Poisson’s ratio of the disc material.