Torsional Creep Buckling of Thin-Walled Open Tubes With a Cross Section Having an Axis of Symmetry

Abstract

The variational theorem by Sanders, McComb, and Schlechte [1] is applied to find the critical collapse time of an open thin-walled tube with a cross section having an axis of symmetry subjected to torsional creep buckling. Large deformation strains are considered. It is shown that small deformation strains yield inaccurate results in predicting the critical time. A simplified stress distribution is introduced which gives a closed-form solution. More accurate stress patterns present considerable difficulties and a tedious numerical integration is needed. In examining most cases, however, the simplified stress configuration predicts the critical time very accurately.