A displacement method for the analysis of flexural shear stresses in thin-walled isotropic composite beams

Shear stresses in cross-sections of prismatic beams can be evaluated for a given normal stress distribution by integration of the equilibrium equations. The considered thin-walled cross-sections have a constant thickness for each element and may be otherwise completely arbitrary. Introduction of a warping function yields a second order differential equation with constant coefficients. The solution of the boundary value problem leads to element stiffness relations for two-node elements within a displacement method. The computed shear stresses are exact with respect to the underlying beam theory. It should be emphasized that the present formulation is especially suited for programming.