Some closed!form equations for the coupling problem of buckling and growth of circular delamination are derived by recourse to the moving boundary variational principle[ The axisymmetric buckling of a circular delamination subjected to an equal bi!axial compression is analysed by using high!order perturbation expansion[ The axisymmetric buckled delamination has the following properties ] under a certain residual pressure\ there exist two characteristic radii\ namely the critical radius R c and growing radius R `^for a certain interface toughness\ the blister has three con_guration of stationary\ stable growth and unstable growth with increasing the loads[ Under a higher edge thrust\ the nonaxisymmetric secondary buckling will occur on the base of axisymmetric buckling and then the toughness and the driving force of the interface crack will be di}erent along the delamination front[ So the growth of circular delamination will not be self! similar[ Without any assumption regarding the delamination front\ the con_gurations of the blister with several nonaxisymmetric buckling modes n 1\ 2\ 5\ 7 are simulated[ The nonaxisymmetric growth process for the nonaxisymmetric buckling mode n 1 is simulated also under a sequence of loads[ ร 0887 Elsevier Science Ltd[ All rights reserved