Numerical Simulation of Large-Displacement Behaviour of Thin-Walled Frames Incorporating Joint Action

This paper is concerned with the development of a beam formulation for large-displacement analysis of thin-walled frames with various joint flexibility conditions. By applying the updated Lagrangian incremental formulation and the displacement field of thin-walled cross-sections, which accounts for restrained warping and the second-order displacement terms due to large rotations, the equilibrium equations of a straight beam element are firstly developed. To include the influence of flexible joint behaviour into the numerical model, a special transformation procedure is proposed.