LUMPED-PARAMETER APPROACH TO STABILITY ANALYSIS

A structural stability modeling technique based on representing the in -plane forces as discretized or lumped parameters is developed and app lied to various structural members. Elastic critical loads on structur es such as frames, curved beams, circular plates, and shells of revolu tion arc calculated and compared with solutions obtained using other m ethods. This modeling procedure leads to a diagonal geometric stiffnes s matrix that provides the same advantages as lumped-mass modeling in a dynamic analysis (including simplicity of formulation, relative accu racy, efficiency in computer time), and it usually yields eigenvalues that are less than the exact values. As in vibration problems, this mo deling procedure can be easily adopted to provide a guaranteed lower b ound for the critical buckling load of the system using Dunkerley's me thod.