Prediction of Thermal Postbuckling Behavior Of Uniform Shear Flexible Column Undergoing Large Lateral Deflections Through An Intuitive Formulation

Abstract

This paper presents a simple intuitive formulation to predict the thermal postbuckling behavior of uniform shear flexible columns, subjected a uniform temperature rise from its stress free condition, undergoing large lateral deflections. The two ends of the columns are restrained to move axially, so that a mechanical equivalent of the constant compressive load is developed, due to the increase in temperature. The proposed formulation is based on the use of nonlinearities existing in both the axial displacement and lateral deflection, which differs from the von-Karman type nonlinearity due to the moderately large lateral deflections only. In this paper, a simple analytical formula is developed to predict the thermal post buckling behavior of columns, considering both the nonlinearities. The numerical results obtained from the developed intuitive formulas match very well, for the slender columns. Since, there are no results available in the literature, to compare the current results with the case of the shear flexible columns, the authors are of the opinion that the trends of these results, given in this paper, show that there is a reasonable probability that the present results are reliable.