Buckling Analysis of Axially Compressed Square Elastic Tubes with Weakly Supported Edges

The local buckling of weakly supported thin-walled square tubes under axial compression is studied. By means of asymptotic methods, an expression for the critical pressure is found. The asymptotic results agree well with the numerical results obtained with the Finite Element Method (FEM) and with the sweepmethod. The dependence of the critical loading on the shell length and on the type of edge supporting is analyzed