Elastic-plastic Analysis of Steel Structures Using the Finite Element Method (3rd Report) : Buckling of Triangular Plate under Various Loading Conditions

Abstract

The recent development in high speed digital computers has helped us to use a numerical approach, termed "the finite element method". The authors developed a method employing the finite element method for the calculation of elastic, elastic-plastic and plastic buckling of plate and applied the method to compressive buckling of plate having discontinuous boundary conditions and obtained quite satisfactory results. In the paper, the authors, using a conforming shape function and triangular finite elements, developed a method of analysis to the buckling problems. The method solves easily the buckling of plate with any complicated geometrical feature and gives a value converging to the exact value. As a typical example of the application, buckling of triangular bracket-type plates under various loading conditions was solved by the method and the solution was compared with the analytical solution obtained by the energy method. The rasult was quite satisfactory and verified the usefulness of the method.