Theoretical and Experimental Thermal Post Buckling Analysis of Columns

Many of the mechanical structures are employed in high temperature conditions. Any variation of temperature may cause considerable side effects such as the creation of thermal stress or deformation. When a structure is composed of slender members such as beams or columns, one of the main problems concerning the rise of temperature is the incidence of thermal buckling. The continuing rise of temperature beyond the onset of thermal buckling level, continually affects the dominant forces and deformations. To study the post buckling phenomenon, following the introduction of different small deformation methods of thermal buckling analysis, a through large deformation scheme is developed to analyze the buckling of a simply supported column. For the case of large deformation analysis the validity of the results is evaluated by comparing with the results obtained by using of the small deformation theory, the linear and nonlinear simulations of ABAQUS software as well as the experimental data. The results characterize the deflection of a beam with uniformly distributed load by different solution techniques as well as the effect of temperature on the mid span deflection of a post buckled beam. Based on the obtained results, the validity of different methods is evaluated.