STABILITY OF VISCO-ELASTIC STRUCTURAL MEMBERS

A method of analysing the buckling behaviour of a visco-elastic structural member is presented. The method uses the visco-elastic correspondence principle to convert the visco-elastic buckling problem to an equivalent elastic problem, the solution of which may be well known or may be readily obtained by standard techniques. A number of specific problems are solved for the particular case of a material whose visco-elastic behaviour may be represented by a three-parameter model which has both an initial and a final elastic response. It is shown that the behaviour of these different problems is quite similar, and that their creep buckling behaviour is governed by the relative magnitudes of the applied load and the immediate and long term elastic buckling loads.