Elastic Buckling of Thin-Walled Structural

Components with Stiffened Holes

Cris Moen, Virginia Tech

Cheng Yu, University of North Texas
51st AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference
Monday, April 12, 2010

Outline
Where are stiffened holes used in structures?
Intro to thin-walled component design
Elastic buckling including stiffened holes:
Global buckling
Distortional buckling
Local buckling
Conclusions

Applications

Aerospace

Metal buildings

Minimize weight, provide pass through access

Outline
Where are stiffened holes used in structures?
Intro to thin-walled component design
Elastic buckling including stiffened holes:
Global buckling
Distortional buckling
Local buckling
Conclusions

Elastic buckling curve

Buckling modes (and loads) are revealed

Pcrl
Pcrd

Pcre

Schafer, B. W., and dny, S. "Buckling analysis of cold-formed steel members using CUFSM:
conventional and constrained finite strip methods," Eighteenth International Specialty Conference
on Cold-Formed Steel Structures. Orlando, FL, 2006.

Thin-walled buckling modes

Mode shapes and buckled halfwavelengths are consistent with

elastic buckling curve

Moen, C. D., and Schafer, B. W.

"Experiments on cold-formed steel
columns with holes," Thin-Walled
Structures Vol. 46, 2008, pp. 1164-11

Design curves
Use elastic buckling loads with design
curves to predict capacity.
For thin-walled members, we have design
curves for local and global instability limit
states.

Design curves
Members with holes calculate elastic
buckling properties including holes and use
similar design curves

Moen, C. D., and Schafer, B. W. "Direct Strength Design of Cold-Formed Steel

Columns with Holes," 2010 Annual Technical Session and Meeting, Structural
Stability Research Council. Orlando, FL, 2010.

Elastic buckling curve

Shell finite element eigen-buckling analysis is
slightly painful but needed for members with
holes.

Motivation
Simplified methods were recently developed for
predicting the elastic buckling properties of thinwalled structural components with unstiffened
holes.
Moen, C. D., and Schafer, B. W. "Elastic buckling of cold-formed steel
columns and beams with holes," Engineering Structures Vol. 31, No.
12, 2009, pp. 2812-2824.

Are these methods viable for stiffened holes?

Outline
Where are stiffened holes used in structures?
Intro to thin-walled component design
Elastic buckling including stiffened holes:
Global buckling
Distortional buckling
Local buckling
Conclusions

Global buckling

Approximate the critical elastic buckling loads for columns and beams
with holes using a weighted average hand calculation.

Flexural buckling
Rayleigh-Ritz Energy Solution:

1
U
2

L
0

1
W
2

d v( x)
dx
EI ( x)
2
dx

L
0

dv( x)
P
dx
dx

U W 0
v

Flexural buckling
The solution is a weighted average equation for Euler buckling.

Pcre

2 E I g L g I net Lnet
2
L
L

Pcre

2 E I g L g I net Lnet T I g I net

2

L
L

L
T
2

Evenly
spacedaverage
holes
Weighted

of moment of
inertia!

2 c j
Lhole, j
sin
cos

L
L

j 1
n

Holes at
Arbitrary
holethe
spacing
midlength of a
column reduce
Pcre the most

Global buckling

Hole spacing is 500 mm.

Column length is 2500 mm.
Hole diameter is varied from 0.1 to 0.7 of H.
Yu, C. "Behavior and design of cold-formed steel joists with edge stiffened perforations,"
Q=0.12hhole
2007 Annual Stability Conference, April 18, 2007 - April 21, 2007. Structural Stability
Research Council, New Orleans, LA, United States, 2007, pp. 239-258.

Flexural buckling
For evenly spaced holes:

Holes at the
midlength of a
column reduce
* ABAQUS results are systematically 6% lower than the
Pcre the
Euler buckling solution. The difference is caused
by most
the
assumption of a rigid cross-section in the classical
stability equations.

Torsional buckling
The weighted average approximation can be extended to the classical
cubic column buckling equation

crey

Pcre Pcrex Pcre Pcre Pcre

Pcrey

2
o

Pcre x
Pcre yo2
Pcre
Pcrex Pcre
0
2
2
ro
ro

Timoshenko and Gere (1961), Chajes

(1974)

and the equation for lateral torsional buckling of beams with holes.

Need to investigate

YES!

M cre

J
St.
torsion
2 Venant
Cw does
not follow the weighted

EI y GJ CEC w Warping
2
torsion
average
approximation!
w
L

A comment on warping torsion

Holes prevent warping torsion resistance from developing along the
length of a member. Buckling modes dominated by torsion are especially
sensitive to the presence of holes.

Outline
Where are stiffened holes used in structures?
Intro to thin-walled component design
Elastic buckling including stiffened holes:
Global buckling
Distortional buckling
Local buckling
Conclusions

Distortional buckling
For evenly spaced holes:

The web provides rotational restraint to the flange.

How does a stiffened hole affect this restraint?

Holes at the
midlength of a
column reduce
Pcre the most

Distortional buckling
For evenly spaced holes:

Study the hole influence within one distortional

buckling half-wave.

Holes at the
midlength of a
column reduce
Pcre the most

Distortional buckling
For evenly spaced
holes:
Edge stiffener
increased
web bending stiffness

Holes at the
midlength of a
column reduce
Pcre the most

Distortional buckling
For evenly

Hole spacing is 560 mm.

spaced
holes:
Column length
is 2794 mm.
Q=0.12hhole

Holes at the
midlength of a
column reduce
Pcre the most

Outline
Where are stiffened holes used in structures?
Intro to thin-walled component design
Elastic buckling including stiffened holes:
Global buckling
Distortional buckling
Local buckling
Conclusions

Local buckling
For an
evenly
spaced
When
unstiffened
hole isholes:
added, deformation concentrates at the hole.

Elastic buckling stress is reduced by the presence of a hole.

Local buckling
For

Depending upon the hole size and plate geometry,

buckling
may occur
away from a hole.
evenly
spaced
holes:

Elastic buckling stress is unaffected by the hole.

Moen, C. D., and Schafer, B. W. "Elastic buckling of thin plates with holes
in compression or bending," Thin-Walled Structures Vol. 47, No. 12, 2009,
pp. 1597-1607.

Local buckling
For evenly method
spaced holes:
Prediction
assume buckling occurs at a
hole or away from (between) holes.

Pcrl=min(Pcrlnh, Pcrlh)
Buckling loads be calculated with a finite strip analysis at
the gross section and the net cross section.

Local buckling
For evenly spaced holes:
An important benefit of
stiffened holes!

Holes at the
midlength of a
column reduce
Pcre the most

Local buckling
For evenly spaced holes:

Wavelength stiffening
occurs when holes are
spaced closely together.

Conclusions
For
evenly
spaced
holes:
Simplified
elastic
buckling
prediction methods outlined in
Moen and Schafer (2009) are viable for stiffened holes (more
validation work is needed for other cross-sections and hole
sizes, shapes, spacings,)
Edge stiffeners did not improve global buckling loads because
I, J, and Cw all decreased due to the presence of holes
Distortional buckling loads were minimally affected by the
presence of stiffened holes, although new hole modes with
half waves forming between holes were observed
Holes at the
Edge stiffeners prevented local buckling at holes,
and closely
midlength
of a

column
spaced holes boosted the critical elastic buckling
load. reduce
Pcre the most

Thank you for your attention!

This presentation can be downloaded at
www.moen.cee.vt.edu

Engineering tools

Thin-walled component design

Thin-walled components are susceptible to
failure caused by cross-section and/or global
instabilities.
Elastic buckling properties are useful for
predicting structural capacity.
How do holes influence elastic buckling?
Can edge stiffeners improve performance
and how can we quantify this improvement?