Stability evaluation of very flexible cantilever beams

The question of the: stability of structures is very interesting from both a practical and theoretical point of view. In this paper the stability of d ead loaded cantilever beams which are known to exhibit multiple solutions i s determined by investigating the eigenvalues of the beam's flexibility mat rix. Both stability in the plane of loading and out of the plane are consid ered. The results are shown to be dependent on the aspect ratio of the cros s section. It is shown that for certain limited cases a planar analysis is sufficient to determine both in-plane and out-of-plane stability. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.