  An elastic disk is coated with an elastic rod, uniformly prestressed with a
tensile or compressive axial force. The prestress state is assumed to be
induced by three different models of external radial load or by 'shrink-fit'
forcing the coating onto the disk. The prestressed coating/disk system, when
loaded with an additional and arbitrary incremental external load, experiences
incremental displacement, strain, and stress, which are solved via complex
potentials. The analysis incorporates models for both perfect and imperfect
bonding at the coating/disk interface. The derived solution highlights the
significant influence not only of the prestress but also of the method employed
to generate it. These two factors lead, in different ways, to a loss or an
increase in incremental stiffness for compressive or tensile prestress. The
first bifurcation load of the structure (which differs for different prestress
generations) is determined in a perturbative way. The results emphasize the
importance of modelling the load and may find applications in flexible
electronics and robot arms subject to pressure or uniformly-distributed radial
forces.
