The Post-Buckling Analysis of Pin-Connected Slender Prismatic Members

Abstract

Many types of structural elastic systems are composed of pin-ended or hinged bars or members. The most common types are plane and three-dimensional space trusses commonly used in structural engineering applications. More recently new types of structural trusses composed of light, slender and very flexible but axially very stiff members have been increasingly used especially in the aerospace applications and in applications in outer-space as masts, or as supporting structures for space stations, large telescopes and radiometers and in other similar light structures of large dimensions. It turns out that such structural systems are very stiff, if connected by precise member fasteners and loaded or supported by concentrated loads centrally at the nodes which connect the members. Such structures can be formed into arbitrary global geometrical shapes, if the members are given different lengths. First, space elements such as tetrahedrons, octahedrons, cubes combined with tetrahedrons etc. are formed from such flexible members and connected. Then the space elements are assembled into a three-dimensional array forming such a space structure in which any two adjacent nodes are connected by a simple bar. As, in general, global geometry of such a structure may be curved as a shell, we speak of shelltype lattices or of reticulated shells¹. Such structures may be enveloped by a membrane or cover-shell if necessary and they may be used effectively for the coverage of large areas, on the earth, for example.