Thin-Walled Structures 2 (1984) 355-376

A Nonlinear Finite Element Computer Program for

Thin-Walled Members

H. P. Lee
18 Asprey Court, Brampton, Ontario, Canada

P. J. Harris
Department of Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics, McGill University, Montreal,
Canada

and

Cheng-Tzu Thomas Hsu

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, New Jersey Institute of
Technology, Newark, New Jersey, USA

ABSTRACT

A nonlinear finite element computer program has been developed to

analyse thin-walled metal structural members. The program has the
ability to handle both geometrical and material nonlinearities so that the
post-buckling behaviour and ultimate strength of members can be pre-
dicted. A bending-membrane rectangular element with six degrees of
freedom at each node forms the basic type of element used in the program.
Marguerre's shallow shell theory is adopted for the strain-displacement
relationships and hence the bifurcation point at buckling can be bypassed
by providing an initial imperfection. The finite element formulation is
based on the total Lagrange coordinate system and the flow theory of
plasticity. Explicitly shown in the paper is the formation of the tangent
stiffness matrix and the tridiagonal block form of solution procedure.
Two problems of a square tube and a channel section beam subjected to
pure bending were tested and found to be in close agreement with
previous theoretical work.
355
Thin-Walled Structures 0263-8231/84/$03-00 O Elsevier Applied Science Publishers Ltd,
England, 1984. Printed in Great Britain
356 H. P. Lee, P. J. Harris, Cheng-Tzu Thomas Hsu

1 INTRODUCTION

The thin-walled beam differs from the conventional hot-rolled beam in

that the compression flange may buckle locally at a low load level. Once
the flange buckles, the stiffness is reduced and the load is transferred to
the portion which is stiffened by the web. Hence the distribution of the
compressive stress across the flange is changed from a uniform distri-
bution in the pre-buckling stage to a highly nonlinear distribution in the
post-buckling stage with a minimum at the location of greatest deform-
ation and a maximum at the flange-web junction. The beam continues to
carry further load until its final failure which occurs after the flange-web
junction has fully yielded. At the present time, the usual approach to the
design of such members is to employ a semi-empirical method using the
effective width concept and the ultimate strength is assumed to be
reached at the load when the maximum stress reaches the yield stress.
A n o t h e r possible failure mode in a thin-walled beam is web crippling at
the supports or at the locations of concentrated loads. This is an
extremely complicated phenomenon as it involves a combination of non-
uniform stress distribution, elastic and plastic instability, local yielding
and bending-shearing interaction. Again, experimental evidence has
been used for the development of design formulae.
To perform a complete theoretical analysis and to predict the ultimate
strength of such a beam require consideration of both geometrical and
material nonlinearities. ~,2This paper presents a special purpose computer
program for analysing three-dimensional beam sections to take full
account of the interaction between plate elements.

2 D E V E L O P M E N T OF T H E P R O G R A M

A displacement tangent stiffness method is employed. In treating the

geometrical nonlinearity, among the three possible approaches of con-
vected, Lagrangian and Eulerian coordinate formulations, the
Lagrangian has been used. This formulation is based on the initial
coordinate system of the undeformed configuration and hence no
transformation of stresses, updating of geometry and revision of the
local-global coordinate transformation matrix are required. On treating
the material nonlinearity, among the three possible approaches of initial
strain, initial stress and tangent modulus methods, the tangent modulus
 Nonlinear finite element program for thin-walled members 357

approach has been employed together with the theory of plasticity. The
von Mises yield criterion and the associated flow rule of the Prandtl-
Reuss relationship are followed and subsequent yielding is governed by
the isotropic hardening rule. In the pre-yielding stage, nonlinear
equilibrium equations are constructed by applying a variational principle
using the virtual displacement approach. The equations are solved using
the Newton-Raphson process which converges extremely rapidly and
hence very large load steps can be used which, in turn, mean a consider-
able saving in computing time. In the post-yielding stage the incremental
procedure is used to be consistent with the flow theory of plasticity. The
incremental equilibrium equations with unbalanced force corrections are
constructed by applying an incremental principle using the virtual dis-
placement method. The details of the above-mentioned methodology for
nonlinear finite element analysis have already been well documented 3'4
and will not be repeated here. However, the algorithms used for
generating the tangent stiffness matrix and solving the stiffness equations,
which affect computing time vitally and are of particular importance in
nonlinear analysis due to its iterative nature, are described fully in the
following sections.

2.1 Tangent stiffness matrix

It is well known that the variational principle derived by using the method
of virtual displacements can be written as

fv BTcrdv = P (1)

where B T, composed of linear (BL) and nonlinear (BN) parts, is the matrix
which transforms nodal displacements to strains at any point in the
element, or is the vector of stresses and P is the vector of applied loads. To
solve these nonlinear equilibrium equations using an iterative process,
such as the Newton-Raphson method, the linear equilibrium equations
to be solved at each iteration can be written as 4

[fv d e , d r + fv Z EB dv + fv CZ rSN + + dq = dR

or, in short

(K~+ KL+ K N ) d q = dR (2)

358 H. P. Lee, P. J. Harris, Cheng-Tzu Thomas Hsu

or

KTdq = dR

where E is the conventional elasticity constant matrix in the pre-yielding

stage, dq is the vector of nodal displacements to be calculated at the
current iteration and is to be added to the previous total displacement
vector to obtain the new total displacements, and d R is the vector of
unbalanced forces at the current iteration. K~, KL and KN are well-known
initial stress (geometrical stiffness) matrix, the conventional linear elastic
stiffness matrix and the initial displacement matrix respectively. Kv is the
sum of all these matrices and is the tangent stiffness matrix.
In the post-yielding stage, the incremental linear equilibrium equations
can be obtained in many ways from the nonlinear equations, such as by
using a first-order Taylor's series expansion,5'6 by converting them into an
initial value problem formulation plus the application of an Euler differ-
ence formula 7'~ or by using a self-correcting solution procedure also
linked with an Euler difference formula. 7-~ However, the incremental
equilibrium equations can also be derived independently from an incre-
mental variational principle using the virtual displacement method 3 and
its final form with unbalanced force corrections can be written simply as

KTAq = Ap+ R (3)

Equation (3) can be viewed as the same as eqn (2) since the incremental
solution procedure with unbalanced force corrections is essentially the
N e w t o n - R a p h s o n method with one iteration.6 The KT in eqn (3) is the
same tangent stiffness matrix as given in eqn (2), except that now the B
matrix is to transform incremental nodal displacements to incremental
strains but remains in the same form and the E matrix is to transform
incremental strains to incremental stresses and is no longer a constant
matrix. The E matrix should be continuously updated and its formulation
in finite element application using the flow theory of plasticity has already
been established. 4'"~
If the tangent stiffness matrix is generated according to eqn (2), both K~
and KN have to be re-evaluated and only KL can be retained as a constant
in the elastic stage of the analysis. In the post-yielding stage, even KL has
to be re-evaluated due to the necessary updating of the E matrix.
However, the tangent stiffness matrix as given in eqn (2) can be arranged
to make a significant reduction in the number of arithmetic operations
 Nonlinear finite element program for thin-walled members 359

during the re-evaluation. The basic strategy is to replace BL and BN by

another transformation matrix denoted by C, and this is demonstrated in
the following using the present study of plate elements as an example.
By adopting Marguerre's shallow shell theory, the strain (including
membrane and flexure)-displacement equations of plates can be written
as
OWoOW [ [ OW ~ 2 OZw
~x Ox Ox Ox

= _ov+____°w°°w +l(0w ]2 o:w

" oy oy oy 2~ oy ] z-~-y

Ov + - - + - - - - +---- + - 2z (4)
Exy = O---x ay Oy ax ax Oy ~

where w0 denotes the initial deflection of the plate due to imperfections,

u, v and w are displacements in the x, y and z directions, respectively, and
Ex, Eyand exyare the strain components. In a manner similar to that in Ref.
11, eqn (4) can be separated into linear and nonlinear parts and rewritten
in matrix notation as

• = AG+½GTHG (5)

where A is a transformation matrix relating displacement gradients to the

linear part of the strains and has the explicit form

OWo
1 0 0 0 0 -Z O 0
Ox

014'0
A = 0 0 0 1 0 0 -Z 0 (6)
ay

OWo OWo
0 1 1 0 0 0 -2Z
Oy Ox

I t is a matrix so created that the correct displacement gradient terms can

be chosen for the corresponding strain components. A different 11 matrix
should be used for the evaluation of different strain components and the
only non-zero coefficients are Ht(5,5) = H2(6,6) = H 3 ( 6 , 5 ) = H 3 ( 5 , 6 )
360 H. P. Lee, P. J. Harris, Cheng-Tzu Thomas Hsu

= 1, where the subscripts 1,2 and 3 represent the first, second and third H
matrices corresponding to the strain components ~x, ~y and Exy,
respectively. All three matrices are symmetrical and are set to a size of
9 x 9 to make the dimensions compatible. G represents the displacement
gradient matrix and can be expressed in terms of nodal displacements as
G = Cq (7)

where C is a transformation matrix relating nodal displacements to

displacement gradients at any point in the element. C is obtained by
differentiating the chosen displacement function with respect to the co-
ordinates x and y or with respect to the normalised coordinates r / a n d ~:
when shape functions are used. Substituting eqn (7) into eqn (5) to
construct a relationship to transform the nodal displacements into strains,
it is clear that BL and BN are defined as
BL = AC

BN.i = GTHiC (i = 1,2,3) (8)

For the case of an incremental solution procedure, similar conclusions

can be drawn. The incremental strain-displacement relationships are
written as

oau + __°w°__°aw+ ____°woaw + 1 [ oaw "-_ o -aw

A~x- Ox Ox Ox Ox Ox 21~ ¢?x ] Z ~

OAv Owo aAw Ow OAw + l [ aAw '~2 a2Aw

A "r - Oy + Oy O~- + O-'-y- O-----y- "~ \ ~ ] - Z ~y .

OAu OAr Owo OAw OWoOAw

AExy = - - + - - + -- 4-
Oy Ox ax ay Oy Ox

OW OAw OW oAw OAw OAw 02AW

+----+----+---- -2Z-- (9)
Ox Oy Oy Ox Ox Oy OxOy

Dropping the higher-order terms and following a procedure similar to

that above to construct the displacement gradients-nodal displacements
and strain-nodal displacement relationships in linear incremental form,
it will be found that matrices A, H and C remain the same as well as BL and
BN as shown in eqns (8).
 Nonlinear finite element programfor thin-walledmembers 361

Substitution of eqns (8) into the first expression of eqn (2) and, after a
lengthy but simple matrix algebraic manipulation, the tangent stiffness
can be rewritten in the following form

KT = fA CT([(~+ I~L+ KN)CdA (lo)

where

R¢ = f,~,¢dz

I~L = f,~: LOz

K~ = f , KNdz (ll)

where C is intentionally moved out of the integration through the

thickness t of the plate since it is independent of the coordinate z.
It can be seen from eqns (10) and (11) that there are basically four
matrices required to form the tangent stiffness matrix: C, K~, KL and KN.
All these matrices have been explicitly formed and are shown in the
Appendix.

2.2 Solution procedure

Equations (2) and (3) are solved using a modified Cholesky decomposi-
tion m e t h o d t2 which avoids taking square roots. The algorithm is to
decompose the stiffness matrix as follows

K = LD-tL T (12)

where L is a lower triangular matrix, D is a diagonal matrix with element

Dii equal to the diagonal element L~. The stiffness matrix K is assured of
being positive-definite by checking that the diagonal elements of D are all
greater than zero. It is seen that only the L matrix has to be evaluated and
stored where the component lijof L Tcan be obtained by using the formula

l,j = Kij- ~_l~--LnjL~, (where i~-j) (13)

n= 1 Lnn
Substituting eqn (12) into eqn (2) or eqn (3), results in

LY = AP (14)
362 H. P. Lee, P. J. Harris, Cheng-Tzu Thomas Hsu

where

D-JLVAq = Y (15)

Equation (14) is first solved for Y using forward substitution. Aq is then

obtained by solving eqn (15) using backward substitution. The algorithm
may proceed one equation at a time and thus requires only one row of the
matrix to be in the core of the computer. This reduces the required core
size to a minimum but it significantly increases the I/O times and may not
necessarily be more economical.
A n alternative technique used is to partition the stiffness matrix into
tridiagonal form similar to that used in Ref. 13. Each physical transverse
or longitudinal nodal line of the finite element mesh is partitioned into
one block. Equation (2) or eqn (3) now appears as (four blocks are used in
the following illustration)

KAq =

where
i j iAqll
BI A2 B~
B2 A3 B~

B3 A4
Aq2
Aq3

Aq4
=
AP2
AP3

AP4 (16)

IA'-1L II II
BI A2 BX2
B2 A3 B~
B3 A 4 ]
z
M! L2
M2L3
M3 L4
D2 I
D:, ]
L2x M T ]

the procedure to obtain submatrices Li and Mi is as follows

AI = LID~IL~ L x D i ] L l = AI
B1 = M j D t 1 L I MI = BI(L~) IDt
A2 = M , D ~ M ] + L 2 D 2 ~ L ~ " LzD2'L[ = A2-MID~IM T
B2 = M202'L72 " M2 = B2(L2T)-LD2
A 3 ~ M2D21MT-~L3D31L T L3D31L T ~ A3-M2D2IM T

B3 = M3D31L T M3-- B3(L T) Io3 etc. (17)

 Nonlinear finite element program for thin-walledmembers 363

These equations are used to obtain each diagonal block L~ values by the
modified Cholesky decomposition algorithm and each off-diagonal block
M~ values by solving the corresponding equations.
The 'forward' solution for eqn (14) can be expressed as

Mi L2 Y2 = AP2~

ELI l(Y,
M2 L3

which leads to
M3 L4
Y3
Y4
AP3/
AP4 : (is)

L1YI = APt
L2Y2 "- A P 2 - M I Y I
L3Y3 = A P 3 - M 2 Y 2 etc. (19)
These equations are solved for Y . Y2, Y3, etc.
The 'backward' solution for eqn (15) is now expressed as

021 L] M] / ~ Aq2 Y2
/ Aq3 = Y~

D2' L 4v...J \Aq~ YI (20)

D41L'~--J \ A q 4 1 Y4 (21)
which leads to

(D2IL~)Aq4 = Y4
(D3~ L~)Aq3 = Y 3 - D3'M~Aq4
(D;IL~)Aq2 = Y 2 - D~M]Aq3 etc. (22)
Solving eqn (22), the displacements Aqi are obtained in reverse order.
364 H. P. Lee, P. J. Harris, Cheng-Tzu Thomas Hsu

3 E X A M P L E PROBLEMS

Even though quite a number of structural members of different sections

and loadings have been analysed, only two problems whose results can be
directly compared with previous work are presented herein. These two
problems are a square-tube beam and a channel-section beam under pure
bending; these were studied by Graves-Smith '4 and Rhodes and
Harvey,15'~6 respectively. The examples used 3 x 3 Gaussian quadrature
for areal integration and nine points (layers) for integration through the
thickness. Stresses are evaluated at integration points. Only a quarter of
each beam is analysed due to double symmetry.

3.1 A square-box beam

The beam is subjected to pure bending which is applied at the ends by

controlled longitudinal displacements. Pure bending is assured by adjust-
ing the axial strain so that the resulting force is zero. Figure 1 shows the
vertical deflection along the longitudinal central line of the compressed
top flange at different levels of applied moment. Local buckling occurs at
M/Mv = 0.67 (My is the moment which causes first yielding of the flanges
based on simple beam theory) and the buckled form of the sinusoidal
wave is generated and increases in magnitude with increasing moment.
Figure 2 shows the moment-curvature relationship and it is found that the
beam of the present study is stiffer than that of Graves-Smith ,4 but is
otherwise in good agreement. Note that the present study shows a clear,
definite load shedding.
Figure 3 shows the relationship between the applied m o m e n t and the
deflection of the top flange due to local buckling. It is not known if
Graves-Smith's curve also includes the deflection due to overall beam
bending, even though it might be of small magnitude because a beam with
a length equal to its width was analysed. In the present study, a more
realistic beam with a length much longer than the width is analysed and
hence the top flange buckled into several waves instead of just one
half-wave. The curve of the present study (based on themid-span section)
represents the deflection due to local buckling only and this may be the
reason that the present curve shows a stiffer behaviour than that of
Graves-Smith.
Figure 4 demonstrates the spreading of the yielded zone at collapse of
the beam. Figure 5 shows the typical stress distribution for both the inner
 Nonlinear finite element program for thin-walled members 365

L / 2 : 14 in. I=
D 17 18 33 41 4g 87
i ~ t I I I

M _ 0 . 6 7 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 1 ~
0.05"
o.Ts-j// ~" \- 0.1"
o.8z'//
0.88 " /
0.94
J
t--y--/7]- T
YT"-/V,I~= 4 i°.
,. o.o~ i°. /-/A~//
O" 16

(7"= 2 7 . 7 6 ksi
Y
t
~
I

I/= 29.5 ksi MESH IDEALIZATION

Y
MATERIAL PROPERTY

Fig. 1. Vertical deflection of top flange of square-box beam.

M/M,,. PRESENT STUDY.

(M¢,/M, : 0.6T)

0.9ot
08

0.6

0.5

0.4

0
T~II
0.4
I

0.6 0.8
! I

1.0 1.2
i I

1.4
i

1.6
i

1.8
]Fig. 2. Moment versus curvature.
 M/My
I.O

0.9

0.8 ./My • 0 7 )

0.7
---~ RESENT STUDY
0.6 (M¢./My = 0.67)

0,5

0.4 (B/t)
I I I I I I
O 0.4 0.8 1.2 1.6 2.0 2.4

Fig. 3. Moment versus buckle amplitude.

¢_

0.94

FULLY ELASTIC: [ I

P A R T I A L L Y YIELDED:

FULLY YIELDED: ~]
Fig. 4. Yielded zones.
 Nonlinear finite element program for thin-walled members 367

~-~ INTERIOR

AVERAGE STRESS
AT TOP FLANGE

i /i
/"EXTERIOR I /
./"~---FACE I /
/ /

I
-~ NTERIOR ~/ /
FACE / /
EXTERIOR
/ / FACE
/ /
/ /
M/M, = 0.94 /
/
/
/
/
ii /
I
//I///

II 3 0 KSI
I/ I 4
II
II
//
// *---WEB
//
/

Fig. 5. L o n g i t u d i n a l stresses at the crest o f buckles.

and outer faces, and for the average stress at the crest of the buckles.
Stresses are distributed nonlinearly as expected.

3.2 A channel section

The material properties and dimensions of the section follow previous

work by Rhodes and Harvey. 15,16The beam is also subjected to pure
bending and hence the same method of loading as in the previous case of
the box beam is employed. Figure 6 shows the vertical deflection along
the longitudinal centre line of the compressed top flange; local buckling
occurs at M = 2276 lb in. (257 Nm). Figure 7 shows the moment-
deflection relationship which is in excellent agreement with the results of
Rhodes and Harvey in the elastic range. However, in the post-yielding
368 H. P. Lee, P. J. Harris, Cheng- Tzu Thomas Hsu

¢_

79~ a l

Z5

MESH IDEALIZATION

/
Z
o.682" ~----NOD E NO.

7 15 19 2,5 31 57 43 49 ,55 61 67 73
0
M= 2,276 LB'IN
O.I
(INITIALBUCKLING}
0.2
M= 3,913 0.3
0.4
0.,5
0.6
M= 8,456
0.7
0.8
0.9
M = 9,465 1.0
i.I
1.2

M = 9,780 1.3
1.4
(IN.)

Fig. 6. Vertical deflection along centre-line of top flange.

 Nonlinear finite element program for thin-walled members 369

,,,J

12,000 RHODES AND

I0,000

8,000

6,000

4,000
2,000
~c(IN.)
I I I i i i I

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 I.Z 1.4

Fig. 7. Moment versus central deflection.

COMPRESSION SIDE OF BUCKLE-

AVERAGE (MEMBRANE)
STRESS
TON/IN" "' it"
8' =E
0
COMP. 4, o
12 8 4

Z
0

Z
lud
I--

TENSION SIDE
| 12 16 OF BUCKLE
TENSION

AND HARVEY

Fig. 8. Longitudinal stress distribution across lipped channel section. - - - , Present study
(M = 6720 lb in); - - - , Rhodes and Harvey t5 (M = 6060 lb in).
370 H. P. Lee, P. J. Harris, Cheng-Tzu Thomas Hsu

T-

M = 9,780

I I FULLY ELASTIC
PARTIALLY YIELDED

---1 FULLY YIELDED

Fig. 9. Yielded zones of channel section.

stage the current study has its stiffness decreased at a faster rate and
deflects more at failure. Figure 8 shows the stress distribution in com-
parison with that found by Rhodes and Harvey. Note that the load levels
are not exactly identical. However, the distribution patterns are quite
similar. The yielded zone at the ultimate load is shown in Fig. 9.

4 CONCLUSIONS

A special-purpose nonlinear finite element program using a displacement

tangent stiffness approach has been developed to analyse thin-walled
beams where both the geometrical nonlinearity for large displacements
and material nonlinearity for plasticity are considered. Two sample
 Nonlinear finite elementprogram for thin-walledmembers 371

problems are used to illustrate the capabilities of the program. Results are
c o m p a r e d with previous theoretical work and found to be in good agree-
ment. Even though the demonstrated problems are based on elastic-
perfectly plastic material, the program can also handle elastic-linear
hardening and nonlinear hardening materials. In such cases the isotropic
hardening rule is used to define subsequent yielding surfaces. Elastic
unloading is also permitted in the program. With this program many
aspects of detailed'studies of thin-walled sections such as distortion of the
cross-section, the effect of lateral restraints, the determination of
deflection in the post-buckling range and the growth of the yielding area,
which cannot be analysed satisfactorily by other methods, can be handled
easily.

REFERENCES

1. Puthli, R. S., Supple, W. J. and Crisfield, M. A., Collapse behaviour of

rectangular steel box girders, Struct. Eng., V56B (1978) 75-80, 84.
2. Crisfield, M. A., Automatic non-linear analysis of stiffened plates and
shallow shells using finite elements, Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng., V69 (1980)
891-909.
3. Washizu, K., Variational methods in elasticity and plasticity, Oxford,
Pergamon Press, 1975.
4. Zienkiewicz, O. C., The finite element method in engineering science,
London, McGraw-Hill, 1977.
5. Mallett, R. H. and Marcal, P. V., Finite element analysis of non-linear
structures, Proc. ASCE, J. Struct. Div., 94 (1968) 2081-105.
6. Stricklin, J. A., Haisler, W. E. and Von Riesemann, W. A., Geometrically
non-linear structural analysis by direct stiffness method, ASCE, J. Struct.
Div., 97 (197l) 2299-314.
7. Haisler, W. E., Stricklin, J. A. and Stebbins, F. J., Development and
evaluation of solution procedures for geometrically non-linear structure
analysis, A I A A J., 10 (1972) 264-72.
8. Stricklin, J. A., Haisler, W. E. and Von Riesemann, W. A., Evaluation of
solution procedures for material and/or geometrically non-linear structural
analysis, A I A A J. ,,11 (1973) 292-9.
9. Haisler, W. E., Stricklin, J. A. and Key, J. E., Displacement incrementa-
tion in non-linear structural analysis by the self-correcting method, Int. J.
Num. Meth. Eng., 11 (1977) 3-10.
10. Marcal, P. V., Finite element analysis with material non-linearities--theory
and practice, In: Proc. of the Spec. Conf. on Finite Element Meth. in Civil
Eng., Ed. by J. O. McCutcheon, M. S. Mizra and A. A. Mufti, McGill
Univ., Montreal, 1972, pp. 35---69.
11. Rajasekaran, S. and Murry, D. W., Incremental finite element matrices,
Proc. ASCE, J. Struct. Div., 99 (1973) 2423-38.
372 H. P. Lee, P. J. Harris, Cheng-Tzu Thomas Hsu

12. Melosh, R. J. and Bamford, R. M., Efficient solution of load-deflection

equations, Proc. ASCE, J. Struct. Div., 95 (1969) 661-76.
13. Pifko, A., Levine, H. S. and Armen, H., Jr., PLAN---a finite element
program for non-linear analysis of structures, Vol. IItheoretical manual,
Research Department, Grumman Aerospace Corp., Bethpage, 1974.
14. Graves-Smith, T. R., The post-buckled behaviour of a thin-walled box
beam in pure bending, Int. J. Mech. Sci., 14 (1972) 711-22.
15. Rhodes, J. and Harvey, J. M., The local buckling and post local buckling
behaviour of thin-walled beams, Aeronautical Quarterly, 22 ( 1971) 363-88.
16. Rhodes, J. and Harvey, J. M., Alternative approach to light-gage beam
design, Proc. ASCE, J. Struct. Div., 97 ( 1971 ) 2119-35.

APPENDIX

Geometry of the element and degrees of freedom

Y
~=-1 ~=1
2a D
r/=l

2b

Z,W Z, Oz
V y,v y,0y

Translation
X,U V ~
Rotation
X,0 x

ui

.0x

w 0.:
 I

• . ~o~+~

i - m

• . r ~ . ~
_~ _-- + E

+~ ~"~ +

• @

-~ ,
- "gc

~. + ~ ~ + ~-

+ ~*

i rl.~ rl~
~y ~r ~ r ~ ~

t
 374 H. P. Lee, P. J. Harris, Cheng-Tzu Thomas Hsu

I
I I[ I

+ + /

i
~1~ ~1~ /
~' /

1
~1~ ~~l ~~ /
+ + #
~ ~, /

.0 -i,-,
L
× I ×
N
I

I ....
b~
1 V
/
/ ~l <~
+ + + +
~1~<
<~ ~
~
~4
o,
<~1 ~

E ...--... ...--.... ...-.-.... __,.

~>~
+ -I- + ÷ /

~I~ ~l~ ~1~ ~1~ ~

+

U ~' 2 ..4'
7
J

II
 Nonlinear finite element program for thin-walled members 375

I
I ! /
/
4-
/
/
• + + •

~1~ ~1~ / +
/
/
/
~1~ ~4~ /
/ ~4
• • + + •

~1~ ~n~ /
~4 u4 /
/ + 4-
~1~ ~1~ / +

• • + + •

~1~ ~1~ / ----.2~ --...?_~ ~..2_.~

~ /
/ 4- 4-
+
I I I
x
I
I I
/ 4- +
4-

+ 4-
+ + + + I;~ I~

~ ~ ~ /
/

+ + + +

,~ /
+ +

• • • fO
f
• • t0 j
f
• /0 ~
II rl II
f Z
Of

II

4~
376 H. P. Lee, P. J. Harris, Cheng-Tzu Thomas Hsu

~(~ o" = O'x "l'xy

Txy O'y

where o-~, O-y and rxy are, respectively, the normal stress in the x and y
directions, and the shear stress on the x-y plane.