Stability of an Infinitely Long Cylindrical Shell Loaded with External Pressure Created by a Rigid External Environment

The article deals with the problem of stability of an infinitely long cylindrical shell, located in an absolutely rigid medium, compressing the shell so that it can lose stability only by deforming into an inner cavity. Using the equations of the nonlinear theory of shells, which takes into account from nonlinear effects only changes in the radii of curvature of the middle surface of the shell during deformation, an exact solution is obtained that determines the critical pressure or the limiting value of the subcritical deformation of the shell. It was found that the critical pressure and deformation largely depend on the connection between the shell and the external environment in the annular direction. Two limiting cases are investigated: a shell rigidly bound to the medium and a shell free from tangential annular surface load. The solution obtained is compared with the results of an experiment carried out on composite shells with a metal and polymer inner layer.