Dynamic response of elastic-plastic pin-ended beams by Galerkin's method

Abstract The problem of the elastic-plastic response of beams with pinned ends under short pulse loading is solved by Galerkin's method (with six degrees of freedom). Numerical results are compared with results obtained by the ABACUS program. An approximate “elastic recovery” type solution is proposed. It is shown that this solution gives satisfactory estimates for the lower bound of the long-term vibrations. Chaotic behavior of the beam is discussed ; the achieved results are compared with the FEM solutions and with the solutions obtained by Symonds et al . (1986, Int. J. Impact Engng 4 , 72–82 ; 1991, Int. J. Solids Structures 27 , 299–314) for Shanley type models.