DETERMINATION OF CENTERS OF FLEXURE USING THE BOUNDARY-ELEMENT METHOD

The center of flexure of a beam of an arbitrary cross-section can be s hown to be given in terms of two harmonic functions which satisfy Neum ann type boundary conditions. The problem is thus suitable for solutio n by the boundary element method. It is shown that the determination o f the center of flexure can be carried out without resorting to area i ntegrals once the values of the two harmonic functions on the boundary are known. Numerical examples are given for: semicircular ring sectio ns; an equilateral triangular section; and a right triangular section.