The Elastic-Plastic Snapping-Through of a Curved Metal Strip Compressed Between Two Rigid Plates : (The Influence of the Supported End Condition on the Snap-Through)

Abstract

The quasi-static loading of a stress-free, initially curved strip, compressed by a flat, rigid plate is considered. The deformation characteristics have been analyzed using an incremental finite element technique. The process involves large displacements, and the strip finally buckles as the central region begins to move away from the plate; snap-through can occur very suddenly. The influence of the end support condition of the strip on the buckling behavior has been analyzed. The assumed end conditions were: rigidly clamped, pinned, and simply supported; as might be anticipated, buckling is not predicted for simply supported ends. It was found that at snap-through, the normalized force for the clamped end condition was larger than that for the pinned end, and the amount of plate displacement was smaller than that of the pinned end support.