BUCKLING OF CONTINUOUS BEAMS ON ELASTIC SUPPORTS*

BY

E D W A R D SAIBEL 1

SUMMARY

The continuous beam having elastic intermediate supports, equally spaced and of
equal stiffness, is solved for the condition t h a t they behave as rigid supports when the
beam buckles under the action of an axial compressive force. The exact solution
is given in closed form.
INTRODUCTION

In a recent paper, J. M. Klitchieff (1) 2 gave an approximate solution

to the problem first discussed by I. G. Boobnov (2) which was to find
the stiffnesses of uniform intermediate elastic supports equally spaced
on a continuous beam such t h a t they would act as though rigid and not
deflect when buckling of the beam occurred under the action of an axial
compressive load on the beam.
T h e original m e t h o d of solution used by Boobnov is described by
Klitchieff who gives an approximate solution by developing the deflected
shape of the beam in the form of a trigonometrical series. Another
m e t h o d of solution is given by S. Timoshenko (3). However these
various solutions m a y be greatly siriaplified and the exact solution
written explicitly in closed form.
S T A T E M E N T OF T H E P R O B L E M

We consider a beam of uniform cross-section which is simply sup-

ported at its ends and is supported at any n u m b e r of places, equally
spaced, by elastic supports of equal rigidity, Fig. 1. The beam is acted
o
t " ~ m-~ ~4r
P • , ) . - -
P

I FIG. 1.

on by an axial compressive force and we wish to find what the stiffnesses

or rigidities of the supports m u s t be in order t h a t the beam undergoes
2
no deflection at any of the points of support.
* The research underlying this paper was partially supported by funds from a U. S. Air
Force contract with Carnegie Institute of Technology.
i Department of Mathematics, Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, Pa.
The boldface numbers in parentheses refer to the references appended to this paper.

563
564 EDWARD SAIBEL [J. F. I.

DETAILS OF THE NUMERICAL SOLUTION

When the beam buckles in the manner described above, Fig. 2, at

each intermediate point of support there is an inflexion point. Conse-

FIG. 2.

quently the bending moments at these points are all equal to zero and
these points of support may be treated as pin connections. The prob-
lem is thus equivalent to a set of m uniform straight beams of length h
each, pin connected and supported at each of the intermediate pins by
elastic supports of modulus k, that is, the reaction at each support is k
times the deflection of the beam at the support.

i /+f
FIG. 3,

In the buckled state, Fig. 3, let the deflection of the i-th point be y ,
the potential energy due to the extension of the spring supports is
given by
,~-1 k y 3 (1)
VI=Y:. 2
i=l

Because of the rotation of the element, Fig. 3, through the angle 8~,
the horizontal distance between points i and i + 1 is diminished by
h
h--hcos~, ~ 0 , 2. (2)

This in turn, for infinitesimal displacements, may be expressed in the

form
1
2--h (y'+' - y,)2. (3)
June, I 9 5 2 . 1 BUCKLING OF CONTINUOUS BEAMS 565

C o n s e q u e n t l y the loss in potential energy due to the horizontal motion

of the ends of the b e a m t o w a r d each other is
p ra--1
1/'2 = )-~ E (Yi+l -- y~)2. (4)
i=l

T h e potential energy of the system K m a y now be written

k m--1 p m--1
V= V1- V2=2 y'y?-- 2h E ( y , + l - y,)~. (5)
i=l i=1

OV
Minimizing V, b y making ~ = 0 for i = 1, 2 . . . . m - 1; leads to a
system of linear homogeneous equations of the form

P P
kyi + ~- (y~+l - y~) - ~- (yi - y~-,) = 0 (6)
or
y~+l - (2 - X)yi + y~_l = 0 (7)

with the b o u n d a r y conditions

y0 = ym = 0 (8)
where X = kh/P.

E q u a t i o n s 7 with b o u n d a r y conditions given b y Eqs. 8 are precisely

the equations and b o u n d a r y conditions of the vibrations of the stretched
cord carrying a set of equal masses equally spaced (4).
T h e solution of this problem is given b y
kh kl
P.~ - - s = 1,2 . . . . , m - 1. (9)
STr STr
4 sin 2 4m sin 2 - -
2m 2m

If we re-arrange Eq. 9 into the form

P,m
k - Z~ (~0)

where

1/~ = 4 sln2~m = 2 1 4- COS for

the expression will be in the precise form for comparison with the results
of T i m o s h e n k o (3) and Klitchieff (1). T h e value of s which we use is
s = m - 1 since we are interested in the lowest buckling load.
W h e n t h e b e a m is buckled as shown in Fig. 2, 2~ is the Euler criti-
cal load for a column having pinned ends and of length l/m, t h u s
566 EDWARD SAIBEL [J. F. I.

m~r~EI
p = m , and Eq. 10 becomes
P
m~r2EI
k - (11)
l~

T a k i n g successive values of m, we obtain the exact value of k for a n y

n u m b e r of supports and of course duplicate the table for/3, notation of
T i m o s h e n k o (3), or 4, in the notation of Klitchieff (1).
It is easily seen from Eq. 10 t h a t as m gets large, and we put
s=m--1,

_1 = 4 sin ~ __sTr
2m
approaches 4 as a limit.
CONCLUSION
T h e analogy between the original problem and t h a t of the loaded
vibrating cord suggests the use of the exact and a p p r o x i m a t e m e t h o d s
which have been developed for solving the latter, to solve the general
case of the buckling w h e n the supports m a y be located a n y w h e r e and
the stiffnesses are arbitrary.
REFERENCES
(1) J. M. KLITCHIEFF,"Buckling of Continuous Beams on Elastic Supports," Quart. Jour.
Mech. and Applied Math., Vol. 2, pt. 3, pp. 257-262 (1949).
(2) I. G. BOOSNOV, "Theory of Structure of Ships," St. Petersburg, 1912.
(3) S. TIMOSHE~KO, "Theory of Elastic Stability," New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co, Inc.,
1936, pp. 22, 105-108.
(4) LORD RAYLEIGH, "Theory of Sound," Vol. I, Second Edition, London, Macmillan, 1894,
pp. 172-175. (Reprinted, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.)