The post-buckling behavior of steel columns depends largely on the plasticity of the material which, before strain-hardening, exhibits a significant amount of plastic flow without any increase in stress. This results in zero tangent modulus of the material and therefore any column buckles immediately after it is compressed up to its yield strength and it then loses the stability. However, along with the post-buckling straining, the lost stability proves to be recovered to some extent or even completely. This is due of course to the subsequent strain-hardening effect, but this process is found to be highly history dependent and complex. This study is devoted to a refined analysis of this history dependent post-buckling behavior of steel columns. It is found from the present study that the buckling deformation of a very short column, or so called stub column, vanishes completely after some post-buckling straining, hence the column recovers subsequently the original straight configuration.
