Direct Computation of Lower-Bound Dynamic Buckling Loads of Imperfection-Sensitive Systems

Abstract

The computation of lower-bound dynamic buckling loads of imperfection-sensitive systems is examined under step load of ine nite duration. An extended system based on the energy criterion for establishing the lower-bound dynamic buckling loads without solving the highly nonlinear initial-value problems is proposed. The newly introduced scaling parameters are nonsingular solutions to the extended system; thus, standard methods can be used to compute them. Using the extended system, one can directly obtain the lower-bound dynamic buckling loads without tracing the postbuckling equilibrium paths. An efe cient implementation of Newton’ s method for solving the extended system is presented, and numerical examples are given.