Stability analysis of bimodular pin-ended slender rod

Abstract

Many novel materials, developed in recent years, have obvious properties with different modulus of elasticity in tension and compression. The ratio of their tensile modulus to compressive modulus is as high as five times. Nowadays, it has become a new trend to study the mechanical properties of these bimodular materials. At the present stage, there are extensive studies related to the strength analysis of bimodular structures, but the investigation of the buckling stability problem of bimodular rods seems to cover new ground. In this article, a semi-analytical method is proposed to acquire the buckling critical load of bimodular slender rod. By introducing non-dimensional parameters, the position of neutral axis of the bimodular rod in the critical state can be determined. Then by combining the phased integration method, the deflection differential equation of bimodular pin-ended slender rod is deduced. In addition, the buckling critical load is obtained by solving this equation. An example, which is conducted by comparing the calculation results between the three of the methods including the laboratory tests, numerical simulation method and the method we developed here, shows that the method proposed in the present work is reliable to use. Furthermore, the influence of bimodular characteristics on the stability is discussed and analyzed.