The some papers which deal with the dynamic instability for shell-like structures under the step load have been published, but there are few papers which treat the essential phenomenon of the dynamic buckling using the phase plane for investigating occurrence of chaos. In nonlinear dynamics, examining the characteristics of attractor on the phase plane and investigating the dynamic buckling process are very important thing for understanding why unstable phenomena are sensitively originated by various initial conditions. In this study, the direct and the indirect snap-buckling of shallow arches considering geometrical nonlinearity are investigated numerically and compared with the static critical load.