Buckling and Postbuckling Analyses of Struts with Discrete Supports

Abstract

Previous studies on the buckling of an elastic strut with discrete flexible transverse supports indicate that a sufficient support stiffness may be found such that the flexible supports would act as rigid supports for a hinged‐end strut. In the present work, a comprehensive study of the buckling and postbuckling behavior of both hinged‐end and fixed‐end struts is carried out. It is revealed that the fixed‐end struts behaves differently from the hinged‐end struts and a clear‐cut suffcient support stiffness cannot be defined from the result of a buckling analysis. A postbuckling analysis indicates that there is a region of support stiffness, in which the postbuckling behavior of the strut is unstable. Therefbre, a sufficient support stiffness may be defined as one that would lead to a stable postbuckling behavior. With this new concept a single support stiffness value is suggested for the design of struts with fixed‐end, hinged‐end, or partially constrained end‐conditions.