Paper 26: On the Deformation of Thick Cylinders at High External Pressure:

Bridgman carried out and reported on extensive experiments on the collapse of thick cylinders at high external pressure. By the use of an analysis based upon elastic incompressibility and the use of a deformation law of plasticity, he was able fairly accurately to predict analytically the diameters after pressurization and removal of pressure and to predict that the axial strain was small relative to the other strains. However, the small residual change in length and the end warping could not be predicted by his analysis. In addition, small but consistent deviations between the experimental results and the analysis could not be accounted for. In this paper it is indicated that in order of magnitude these three effects can be shown by the use of a compressible material and Tresca's yield criterion with its associated flow law. It is also shown that in order to evalute correctly the role played by the axial stress the use of a material that is elastically compressible is required.