Abstract
Effects of stress-strain curves on limit width-to-thickness ratios of steel plates and limit diameter-to-thickness ratios of steel circular cylinders were investigated by means of a Finite Element Method. Preceding the parametric study, the applicability of the FEM was established by achieving a good agreement between FEM and stub-column test of stainless steel plates and cylinders. It was found that the limit ratios are apparently affected by the shapes of stress-strain curves in such a way that the C_1-coefficient for plates and C_2-coefficient for cylinders are strongly positive-correlated with the tangent modulus and secant modulus at the yield stress of the material. Noticing that the limit width-to-thickness ratio of plates is represented by [numerical formula] and the limit diameter-to-thickness ratio of cylinders is represented by C_2/σ_y, a larger offset for determining the yield stress σ_y gives smaller values for C_1 and C_2.
