ABSTRACT
Thin-walled circular cylindrical shells have recently been used in several industrial applications where the surrounding materials partially or fully confine the radial displacements of the inner thin shell. When subject to compressive loading due, for example, to increased operating temperature, the liner shell is prone to a form of restrained buckling. This Paper describes a modelling of this buckling that requires the inner liner be rigidly constrained by the surrounding medium. Analysis of a carefully chosen analogous model allows identification of the main features of the one-way buckling exhibited. Below a certain critical level of initial geometric imperfection it is shown that buckling is not possible. Behaviour with the critical imperfection is shown to be of a form of asymmetric bifurcation for which the post-buckling characteristics to a large extent determines the responses when imperfection levels exceed the critical level.
