Buckling in Rings

From oil drums to–yes–soda cans, liquid-filled cylindrical shells are everywhere. And, it turns out, these structures fail differently than empty shells or ones filled with a solid. Liquid-filled cylinders buckle in sequential rings, as seen in the video below. Researchers found that the buckling resulted from the shell softening and re-stiffening under the compressive load–repeating that process over and over for each ring. Their findings could help us detect containers that are in danger of failing. (Video, image, and research credit: S. Jain et al.; via Ars Technica)