2E4: SOLIDS & STRUCTURES

Lecture 15
Dr. Bidisha Ghosh
Notes:
http://www.tcd.ie/civileng/Staff/Bidisha.
Ghosh/Solids & Structures

Buckling of Columns
What is buckling?

Buckling is a large deformation produced under

compressive load in a direction or plane normal to
the direction of application of the load.

Buckling is a form of instability, it occurs suddenly

with large changes in deformation but little change in
loading. For this reason it is a dangerous phenomenon
that must be avoided in structural design.

Buckling is not failure through yielding. Due to the

shape of a structural element it can buckle under a
load below the ultimate strength.

Whether a column will buckle or not depends

on the length of the column.

Long Columns

Long columns usually fail by elastic buckling.

The failure load is below ultimate strength of

the material.

The Euler formula is used to calculate failure

strength in long columns.

Short Columns

Short columns generally dont fail by elastic

buckling.

The failure stress is close to yield stress of

the material.

The true short-columns do not have much

How do we know which is a

short/long column?
We need to know one thing about the column.
Slenderness Ratio
(It is related to the length of a column)
Le r
Slenderness ratio

What is? It is the length of the column

(for a

pinned-pinned end condition)

What is r? It is the radius of gyration of the

column.
r

I
A

Radius of Gyration is a term defined as,

Classification of Columns

CD is Euler curve showing behaviour of long

columns

Euler formula should not be used for

slenderness ratio <120

End Conditions

What was the pinned-pinned condition mentioned in

connection with Slenderness ratio?

Euler derived all formulae related to column buckling for

pinned-pinned condition and later for other end support
conditions, those formula were altered by using a
constant, C
Instead of the actual length of the columns a new length
termed as the effective length was used.
L2
L
C
Effective length,
2
e

Column pinned at each end:

Column pinned at one end, fixed at the other end:
Column with a roller at one end, fixed at the other end:
Column fixed at each end:

Different End-Conditions

Check the load required to buckle!

Failure Stress

The
long/slender columns which fail by bucking
the load can be calculated using the formula
for
EULER
2 BUCKLING LOAD (Also called critical buckling
load)
Pcr

EI
Le 2

Definition: For a given column the minimum load

causing buckling depends on the geometrical and
mechanical characteristics (length, section, Youngs
2
P

cr the E
modulus, end support condition)
of
cr
2 column:.
A

The C values are same as discussed before.

The critical stress can be defined as,

Critical buckling stress should always be less

Cross-sectional Shape & Buckling

The radius of gyration provides a measure of the
resistance provided by a cross-section to lateral
buckling.
The radius of gyration is not a physical entity in itself. It
is a relationship derived to make prediction of column
behaviour easy. The radius of gyration is related to the
size and shape of the cross-section.

Columns will buckle inBuckling

the Direction
direction Cross-section
of least
y
P
cross-sectional
stiffness (minimum value
of IA ).
y

x
b
Iy>Iz

A rectangular column will buckle in the direction of the

smaller dimension in cross-section. A square column
cross-section will be equally prone to buckling in both x

Example
Determine the thickness of a round steel
tubular strut, 375mm external diameter and
2.5m long, pin-jointed at the ends, to withstand
an axial load of 39000kN. E=200GPa.

Moment curvature equation

A quick touch on bending before learning
buckling!
1.

Moment at any section

2.

Moment-curvature
equation:
d2y

3.

M EI

dx 2

Buckling is an effect of combined

compression & bending

Compression on A Slender Column

From knowledge of bending,

d2y
M EI 2 Py
dx
d2y
EI 2 Py 0
dx
Solve this equation..
P
1. d 2 y
2
2

0;
where

dx 2
EI
2. So,y A sin x B cos x;
From boundary conditions, B=0 & A sin L 0

Compression on A Slender Column

A sin L 0
means, either A 0 or , sin L 0
For any buckling to happen the second condition has to
be true and that means,

L 0, , 2 ,3 .....
P
n (n 1, 2,...)
EI
n 2 2 EI
P
L2
and , L