STABILITY OF A PLANE SHAPE OF A CURVILINEAR ROD

An algorithm for the numerical analysis of stability of the plane shape of a curvilinear rod is presented. The rod is loaded by arbitrary forces the lines of action of which lie in the plane of the rod axis before the loss of stability. The most general case is considered where the equilibrium of the rod loaded by subcritical forces is described by nonlinear equations. An example is given demonstrating the numerical computation of critical forces for a cantilever plane curvilinear rod subjected to dead and follower lumped loads (forces and torque). It is shown that follower concentrated forces do not lead to the static loss of stability.