EULER BUCKLING OF THIN-WALLED COMPOSITE COLUMNS

Pultruded composite structural members with open or closed thin-walled sections are being extensively used as columns for structural applica tions where buckling is the main consideration in the design. In this paper, global buckling is investigated and critical loads are experime ntally determined for various fiber reinforced composite I-beams of lo ng column length. Southwell's method is used to determine the critical buckling load about strong and weak axes. The experimentally determin ed buckling load is compared with theoretical predictions. A number of observations about testing methodology and data reduction techniques are presented.