A design technique for the frame structure with the largest buckling l
oad will be proposed in this paper. The reciprocal sum of the buckling
loads of the structure is minimized with a constraint that the volume
of the structural materials should be kept constant. Such an optimal
method also means that the structure will approximately take the large
st buckling load. The structural problem is formulated by using the ma
trix displacement method and the solution is given by an iterative sch
eme, while it is not necessary to compute the buckling eigenvalues. So
me numerical examples are included. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.