ELASTIC DISTORTIONAL BUCKLING OF CONTINUOUS I-BEAMS

The buckling of thin-walled I-beams is usually treated as being either local or lateral. However, these two buckling modes may interact with each other, and this phenomenon is referred to as 'distortional buckl ing'. An elastic distortional buckling analysis of a two-span continuo us I-beam with a concentrated load in each span is consider-ed in the paper. The first part of the method performs a simple in-plane analysi s of the beam in order to establish the stress resultants, which are t hen introduced into an out-of-plane distortional buckling analysis dev eloped elsewhere. The effects of factors, such as the section geometry , beam slenderness, support restraint conditions, load height and loca tion and span ratio on the elastic distortional buckling response, are then studied. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.