Abstract
In recent years, flexible materials with very high performance are widely used and large deformation analyses of these materials have attracted considerable attention. However, there is not sufficient analysis for problems of practical interest such as large deformation of a cable within a channel (or a pipe), or of a drill within a hole in rock engineering and petroleum production, or of a catheter within a blood vessel, and so on. When a lightweight, flexible material must be pushed through the narrow space, it is possible for the materials to buckle since the leading edge of the material strikes an obstacle (or a barrier) and cannot proceed any further. The postbuckled configuration, namely large deformation, will be thus of great concern in handling these flexible materials. This paper deals with the postbuckling behavior of a flexible elastic beam contained within rigid, parallel walls with friction under the action of axial compressive forces at each end.
