Curved Beam Element for Arch Buckling Analysis

A finite element model is presented for a beam initially curved in one plane but deformable in the three dimensional space. Geometric nonlinearities are included in the analysis and eigenproblems are formulated to calculate the bifurcation buckling loads of arches. Numerical results obtained for some problems indicated that —n2? had only negligible effect on the buckling load and that the rotation terms in —n1? should be deleted. Results thus obtained with the modified —n1? matrix and with only a few elements to represent the arch structure indicated very good agreement with known analytical solutions and available experimental data.