Spline finite member element method for buckling of thin-walled members with any cross sections in pure bending Original Research Article

Based on the displacement variational principle, a general method, called spline finite member element method, is developed for buckling analysis of thin-walled members with arbitrary cross sections under pure bending in the present paper. A transformed spline function is used to simulate the warping displacements along the cross section of the thin-walled member. The analysis takes into account the shear lag effect. Compared with the results from classical theory and the package ‘COSMOS/M’ (a finite element analysis program), the versatility, accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method are fully demonstrated. The fast convergency shown in numerical examples predicts the reliability of the results.