AN ELASTIC-PLASTIC BIFURCATION ANALYSIS OF MULTIPLE DISCRETE SYSTEMS AND ITS APPLICATION TO TRUSSES

Abstract

The elastic-plastic bifurcation phenomena are complicated due to the difference of the loading and the unloading characteristics of materials. Hutchinson applied Hill's theory to examine with considerable generality the theoretical aspects of the plastic bifurcation of continuum body and presented a perturbation method to analyze it. Although the method is theoretically exact, its application is restricted to simple problems due to the complicated mathematical operations. Further, the equilibrium paths can be obtained accurately only in the vicinty of the bifurcation points. In view of practical importance, we here present a versatile numerical method to analyze the elastic-plastic bifurcation of multiple discrete systems including the post-bifurcation range.