ABSTRACT
Cylindrical shell structures are often subjected to compressive stresses in the direction of the cylinder axis, which can be either uniform or varying throughout the cylinder. The buckling strength of a thin cylindrical shell under axial compression is particularly sensitive to imperfections in the shell, and the changing patterns of behaviour with changing geometry, loading and boundary conditions make the axially compressed cylinder a classical exemplar for behaviours that may be found in a less marked form in other structures or in shells under other loading conditions. For these reasons, the axially compressed cylinder has probably been the most extensively studied of all shell buckling conditions, giving a wealth of evidence from both experimental and theoretical work.
