Postbuckling Behavior of Compressed Rods in an Elastic Medium

The postbuckling of rods loaded by a compressive force P in an elastic medium is considered. The resolving nonlinear equation is obtained, and a method for solving this equation is given. It is shown that, for large lengths, in contrast to the case without elastic medium, the deflection increases as the force P decreases after the loss of stability. Several simple finite-element models, namely, the problems of compression of multilink rods with links connected by springs, are considered to confirm this effect.