SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE

PLANNING, DESIGN, CONSTRUCITON

AND BUILDING RENEWAL
iNDiS 2015
NOVI SAD, 25-27 NOVEMBER 2015

UDK: 624.041
Dragan D. MILAŠINOVIĆ1
Dijana MAJSTOROVIĆ2
Radovan VUKOMANOVIĆ3
Nataša MRĐA4
Radomir CVIJIĆ5

STATIC AND DYNAMIC INELASTIC BUCKLING OF THIN-

WALLED STRUCTURES USING THE FINITE STRIP METHOD

Abstract: This paper aims at providing a unified frame for quasi-static and dynamic inelastic buckling of
uniformly compressed plate structures using the finite strip method. The elastic properties of the material
are determined using the propagation of mechanical waves. The nonlinear behavior of the material is
invoked using the rheological-dynamical analogy. According to the analogy, a very complicated
nonlinear problem in the inelastic range of strains is solved as a simple linear dynamic one. The
orthotropic constitutive relations for inelastic buckling are derived and a new modulus iterative method
for the solution of nonlinear equations is presented.

Кey words: finite strip method, inelastic buckling, modulus iterative method

STATIČKO I DINAMIČKO NEELASTIČNO IZVIJANJE

TANKOZIDNIH NOSAČA METODOM KONAČNIH TRAKA
Rezime: Cilj ovog rada je da obezbjedi jedinstven okvir za kvazi-statičko i dinamičko neelastično
izvijanje pritisnutih pločastih konstrukcija korištenjem metoda konačnih traka. Elastične osobine
materijala su određene korištenjem propagacije talasa. Nelinearno ponašanje materijala se rješava
metodom reološko-dinamičke analogije. Prema analogiji, veoma komplikovan nelinearan problem u
neelastičnom području deformacija se rješava kao jednostavan linearan dinamički problem. Dobijene su
ortotropne konstitutivne jednačine neelastičnog izvijanja, i predstavljen je novi iterativni metod
rješavanje nelinearnih jednačina.

Ključne reči: metod konačnih traka, neelastično izvijanje, iterativni metod

1
University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Civil Engineering Subotica, Kozaračka 2a, Serbia, ddmil@gf.uns.ac.rs
2
University of Banjaluka, Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy, BiH, dijanam@aggfbl.org
3
University of Banjaluka, Faculty of Architecture,Civil Engineering and Geodesy, BiH, rvukomanovic@aggfbl.org
4
University of Banjaluka, Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy, BiH, mnatasa@aggfbl.org
5
University of Banjaluka, Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy, BiH, rcvijic@aggfbl.org

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1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The purpose of this paper is to investigate some new mechanical aspects of
uniformly compressed plate structures. These are structures which are generally made
by joining flat plates at their edges. An important sub-set of these structures, and
which are the main concern of this paper, are those essentially of prismatic form but
which can have some transverse stiffening such as is used in box girders, stiffened
plates and plate girders. The analysis of the behavior of these structures is approached
using the finite strip method (FSM). The FSM is based on the eigen-functions, which
are derived from the solution of the beam differential equation of transverse vibration,
and proved to be efficient tool for analyzing a great deal of structures for which both
geometry and material properties can be considered as constants along a main
direction, while only the loading distribution may vary. This method was pioneered
by Cheung [1], who combined the plane elasticity and the Kirchhoff plate theory.
Wang and Dawe [2] have applied the elastic geometrically nonlinear FSM to the large
deflection and post-overall-buckling analysis of diaphragm-supported plate structures.
Also, the FSM is very rapidly increasing in popularity for the analysis of thin-walled
structures. Kwon and Hancock [3] developed the spline FSM to handle local,
distortional and overall buckling modes in post-buckling range. The interaction of
two types of column failure (buckling) in thin-walled structures: local and global
(Euler) column buckling, may generate an unstable coupled mode, rendering the
structure highly imperfection sensitive. The geometrically nonlinear harmonic
coupled finite strip method (HCFSM) [4-5] is also one of the many procedures that
can be applied to analyze the large deflection of thin-walled structures and buckling-
mode interaction. For these problems, only geometrically nonlinear terms such as
square derivatives of transverse displacement w need be included (von Karman
approach). An analysis of the buckling-mode interaction is carried out by the HCFSM
in [6], taking into account the visco-elastic behavior of material.
If uniformly compressed plate or thin-walled structures undergo inelastic
deformation these structures generally include both nonlinearities: the geometrically
nonlinear effects and nonlinear behavior of the material caused by an inelastic
deformation. A mathematical-physical analogy named rheological-dynamical analogy
(RDA) has been proposed in explicit form to predict a range of inelastic and time-
dependent problems related to one-dimensional members, such as buckling, fatigue
etc. [7, 8]. Consequently, the RDA inelastic theory enables the engineer concerned
with materials (for various structural problems) to utilize simple models, expressible
in a mathematically closed-form, to predict the stress-strain behavior. The main
results in the paper [7] are made on the inelastic buckling in the short to intermediate
column range taking into account the governing RDA modulus. However, the wide-
flange column members or thin-walled structures fail as continuum by first
developing local or global buckling modes, which may be changed into plastic
mechanisms and failure. Because of that the two-dimensional (2D) or three
dimensional (3D) analysis must be used.

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The proposed approach combines the RDA and damage mechanics [9] to solve the
nonlinear problem of plate structures under compression using 2D analysis in frame
of the FSM. The one-dimensional RDA modulus is used to obtain one simple
continuous modulus function and a stress-strain curve [10]. When the critical stress
exceeds the limit of elasticity, the first iteration of the modulus provides the Hencky’s
loading function and the von Mises yield stress, whereas the next ones involve the
strain-hardening of the material through visco-plastic flow. At the end of the
iterations a member failure occurs. The key global parameters, such as the creep
coefficient, Poisson’s ratio and damage variable are functionally related. However,
the fact is that cracking is accompanied by an emission of elastic waves which
propagate within the bulk of the material [11]. Because of that, 3D analysis of the
propagation of mechanical waves is used in this paper. The elastic properties of steel
and aluminum determined on test cylinders from longitudinal resonance frequencies
[12], are used in the numerical applications. For the analysis of plate structures using
the FSM, the inelastic isotropic 2D constitutive matrix is derived starting from the
one-dimensional state of stress. Although the quasi-static and dynamic constitutive
relations are derived for isotropic material, different stress components induce
orthotropy in material through the RDA modulus-stress dependence. The nonlinear
term is the stiffness matrix, which depends on inelastic orthotropic constitutive
matrix. Because of that, a new modulus iterative method for the solution of nonlinear
equations is presented. The convergence of the method is fast and gives satisfactorily
accurate solutions in only several iterations as demonstrated in the case of a
rectangular plates [13], and for thin-walled structures in this paper.

2. NUMERICAL APPLICATIONS
The measured and computed elastic parameters for steel and aluminum are shown
in Table 1.

Таble 1- Elastic parameters for steel and aluminum, computed using RDA procedure.
EH (GPa) P φ* ED (GPa) E(0) (GPa) P .(
Steel 200 0.3 1.502 274.26 265.84 0.116 0.00773
Aluminum 70 0.33 1.940 110.86 102.17 0.179 0.01202

According to the bifurcation form of stability loss, Omin is scaling factor related to the
critical stress as follows
Omin (1)
V cr
2t
In order to obtain inelastic critical stresses, the Euler formula for buckling of an
isolated plate strip is employed to find the structural-material constant KE of a plate.
For this problem the relative amplitude for the edge local buckling stress is as follows

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S 2 EH
2
§t·
V crE ¨ ¸ (2)

12 1  P 2  ©b¹

Consequently, the edge local buckling stress can be represented by

V crE kV crE (3)
where k is the common local buckling coefficient.
Hence, the structural-material constant for the local buckling mode may be
expressed as follows

M* 
M* 12 1  P § b ·
2

2
(4)
KE ¨ ¸
kV crE k S 2 EH © t ¹

2.1. Steel structures

The results of buckling behavior of RHS columns investigated in [14] are used in
this paper in order to compare with the proposed method. The results are compared in
Figure 1.

Figure 1 – Quasi-static elastic and inelastic buckling curves for a RHS columns.

The FSM elastic solution with 14 finite strips and 8-35 series terms is in excellent
agreement with the solution that is referred in [14]. The results of both the FSM
visco-plastic and failure (with only 6 or 7 iterations) predictions are obtained using
the long-time modulus EH and P. The results are in well agreement with the GBT
deformation theory. Also, the results with initial parameters E(0) and P are in well
agreement with the GBT flow theory. As it is known, stress-strain laws for materials
which exhibit strain-hardening can be divided into two types called theory of plastic
deformation and theory of plastic flow. According to the first, there exists a one-to-
one correspondence between stress and strain in the plastic range. On the other hand,
the theory of plastic flow is based on the assumption that, for a given state of stress,
there exists a one-to-one correspondence between the rates of change of stress and

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strain. Figure 1 shows that RDA failure stresses, which are based on the long-time
modulus of elasticity, are close to the stresses obtained by the GBT deformation
theory. It is logical, because in this case the strain and stress rates are negligible in the
plastic range. Contrary to this, in the case of the short-time excitation, the strain and
stress rates are dominate in the plastic range and the RDA visco-plastic stresses
obtained by the initial parameters are close to the stresses obtained by the GBT flow
theory.
When strain response is described using the harmonic sinusoidal law, the dynamic
parameters are elements of the compliance matrix.
Figure 2 presents the dynamic inelastic buckling curves for relative angular
frequency (RAF) of 1 and 10. All dynamic stresses are below the elastic critical
stresses. The reason for that is the cyclic stress variation in the material under which
the visco-plastic effects like as the viscous damping are developed.

Figure 2 – Dynamic inelastic buckling curves for a RHS columns.

Figure 3. shows only elastic static buckling modes for two lengths of RHS
columns ( 210 mm and 300 mm) with critical sresses of 405.88 MPa and 361.27 MPa,
which are in well agreement with FSM elastic theory.

Figure 3 – Static elastic buckling modes from Abaqus.

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2.2. Aluminum structures

The buckling behavior of aluminum structures was also investigated in [14] using
the GBT formulation for both flow and deformation theories. Figure 4. presents the
results from [14] and from presented method, which are logical if we compared them.

Figure 4 – Static and dynamic inelastic buckling curves for a C-section columns.

3. CONCLUSIONS
Static and dynamic inelastic buckling of thin-walled structures, according to
classical (linear) buckling theory has been the subject of investigation in this paper.
The inelastic FSM is developed through the RDA modeling of materials. Although
the quasi-static 2D constitutive relations are derived for isotropic material, different
stress components induce orthotropy in the material through RDA modulus-stress
depedence. A new modulus iterative method for the solution of nonlinear equation is
applied. The convergence of this method is fast and gives satisfactorily accurate
solutions in only several iterations.

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4. REFERENCES
[1] Cheung, YK. 1976. Finite strip method in structural analysis, Pergamon Press
[2] Wang, S., Dawe, DJ. 1996. Finite strip large deflection and post-overall-buckling
analysis of diaphragm-supported plate structures, Computers and Structures:
61(1):155-170.
[3] Kwon YB, Hancock GJ. 1991. A nonlinear elastic spline finite strip analysis for
thin-walled sections, Thin-Walled Structures:295-319.
[4] Milašinović DD. 1997. The finite strip method in computational mechanics,
Faculties of Civil Engineering: University of Novi Sad, Technical University of
Budapest and University of Belgrade: Subotica, Budapest, Belgrade
[5] Milašinović DD. 2011. Geometric non-linear analysis of thin plate structures
using the harmonic coupled finite strip method, Thin-Walled Structures:
49(2):280-290.
[6] Milašinović DD. 2012. Harmonic coupled finite strip method applied on
buckling-mode interaction analysis of composite thin-walled wide-flange
columns, Thin-Walled Structures:50(1):95-105.
[7] Milašinović DD. 2000. Rheological-dynamical analogy: prediction of buckling
curves of columns, International Journal of Solids and Structures:37(29):3965-
4004.
[8] Milašinović DD. 2003. Rheological-dynamical analogy: modeling of fatigue
behavior, International Journal of Solids and Structures:40(1):181-217.
[9] Lemaitre J. 1984. How to Use Damage Mechanics, Nuclear Engineering and
Design:80:233-245.
[10] Milašinović DD. 2015. Rheological-dynamical continuum damage model for
concrete under uniaxial compression and its experimental verification,
Theoretical and Applied Mechanics:42(2):73-110.
[11] Carpinteri A, Lacidogna G, Pugno N. 2007. Structural damage diagnosis and
life-time assessment by acoustic emission monitoring, Engineering Fracture
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[12] Subramaniam VK, Popovics JS, Surendra PS. 2000. Determining elastic
properties of concrete using vibrational resonance frequencies of standard test
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[13] Milašinović DD, Majstorović D, Došenović M. 2015. Quasi-Static and Dynamic
Inelastic Buckling and Failure of Plates Structures using the Finite Strip
Method, In: Kruis, J. Tsompanakis, Y. and Topping, B.H.V. (Editors),
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