Theoretical and experimental analysis of a thin elastic cylindrical tube acting as a non-Hookean spring

We analyze the (large) deformation and energy of a thin elastic cylindrical tube compressed between two plates parallel to the tube axis. The deformation is studied theoretically using a numerical calculation and the variational approach. The results are used to interpret the experimental data obtained by pressing tubes made from plastic-foil transparencies.We obtain a universal scaling relation that characterizes the response of the tube. Our results may serve as a benchmark for the application of variational methods to thin-walled nanoscale systems in order to obtain functional relations between the energy and the deformation