Finite Strip Methods for Instability of Prismatic Plate Assemblies

Abstract

The fundamentals and applications of the Finite Strip Method to instability of prismatic plate assemblies are reviewed. In the first part of the paper the motivation to study such stability problems in the context of civil engineering structures is stated. In the second part both the energy concepts of stability from which the equilibrium equations are obtained. and the displacement fields used for the finite strip approximations are discussed. The last part is oriented to applications of the stability and finite strip fundamentals to the solution of bifurcation buckling, post buckling equilibrium and mode interaction.
The applications show that the technique is capable of handling almost every problem of stability of prismatic plate assemblies, with the restrictions of the boundar7 conditions that can be satisfied in global buckling problems.