SOUTHWELL METHOD TO STUDY FLEXURAL

INSTABILITY OF COLUMN
EXPERIMENT-5

ELAGANDULA SHARAN TEJA

18AE10011
DOE: 15/10/2020
DOS: 22/10/2020
AIM:
To find the critical load of a double pin ended column by applying axial load at one end and compare it
with the theoretical value.

APPARATUS:
 Imperfect Aluminium Pin ended Column
 2 Strain Gauges
 Strain Gauge meter
 Scale
 Vernier Calliper
 Load cell

THEORY:
Buckling of Ideal Pin-ended column:
Consider a pin-ended column AB. Let us assume it is in the displaced state of neutral equilibrium
associated with buckling so that the compressive load P has attained critical load .

Simple theory of bending can be used to describe the equation of the elastic curve as:

The solution for the differential equation is,

Applying the boundary conditions, i.e. at x=0,l implies y=0

For a non-trivial solution,

So, the smallest value of buckling load is

When both ends are fixed,

When one end is fixed and other is hinged,

The critical stress for a given of a pin-ended column is given by,

Where,
l is the length of the column,
r is the radius of gyration of C.S of the column,
E is the Young’s Modulus of the material of the column.

Buckling of Imperfect Column:

Let us assume that an imperfect column is initially bent and is subjected to an increasingly axial load P.
In this case, The B.M is always proportional to the change in curvature of the column from its initial
position. Thus,
The final deflected shape y is dependent on the unloaded shape y0. Since any arbitrary curve can be
done using Fourier sine series where the initial shape of the centre line can be assumed as,

So,

The general solution is given by,

Where, B and D are constants and

Applying boundary conditions,

We can write,

Thus, is always less than 1 and approaches to 1 as P tends to . So we can say that the first
term of the series is dominating and therefore, a good approximation results in neglecting of higher
order terms which will change the equation to,

At the centre of the column, x = l/2,

Where, is the initial central deflection. If central deflection is measured from initially bowed
position,
A graph of vs has a slope in the region of critical load and slope is and intercept is equal to
initial central deflection. This graph is well known as “South-Well Plot” for experimental
determination of buckling load of an imperfect column.

PROCEDURE:
 Fix the column in the testing set-up.
 Mount two strain gauges back to back in the direction of loading on a chosen location of the
column.
 Connect the strain gauges in half-bridge circuit with the two active gauges in the adjacent arms.
The sensitivity of the measured output is doubled in this configuration and the temperature is
also compensated.
 Take bending strain readings for different values of the axial load P. Now plot a graph of
versus /P and draw a best fit straight line through all the points. The slope of the straight
line gives the buckling load .
 Repeat the experiment for a hinged-fixed column and a fixed-fixed column.
 Calculate theoretically the buckling loads of the column and compare the results with the
experimental values.

OBSERVATIONS:
 Length of the column, l = 51.3 cm

 Width of the column, w =

 Thickness of the column, t =

Observation Table:
Load(N) Deflection in y-direction Strain in x-direction
(mm) (*10^-6)
0.1 0 0
17 0 0
27.1 0.03 1
41.4 0.11 3
50.2 0.19 5
55.4 0.26 7
58.8 0.31 9
62.7 0.35 10
62.4 0.46 13
76.6 0.66 19
79.3 0.78 24
81.9 0.84 26
84.8 1.07 33
87.1 1.17 36
90.9 1.27 39
89.8 1.47 46
92.3 1.6 50
90.9 1.7 54
South Well Bucking Plot:
Deflection (mm) Deflection / Load (mm/N)
0 0
0 0
0.03 0.001107
0.11 0.002657
0.19 0.003785
0.26 0.004693
0.31 0.005272
0.35 0.005582
0.46 0.007372
0.66 0.008616
0.78 0.009836
0.84 0.010256
1.07 0.012618
1.17 0.013433
1.27 0.013971
1.47 0.01637
1.6 0.017335
1.7 0.018702

The slope of this curve gives the experimental critical load, So,

Calculation of Theoretical critical load:

Using the equation,

Where,
E = Young’s modulus of the column = 67 GPA
L = Length of the column = 51.3 cm
I = Inertia of the cross section about x-axis = 9.89537 mm^4

Substituting the above values in the equation of ,

RESULTS:

 The experimental critical load is

 The theoretical critical load is
 The error between the experimental and the theoretical critical loads is,

DISCUSSION:
 As we can see there is an error in the theoretical and experimental which may be occurred due
to the incorrect measurement of distances and thickness using scales and vernier callipers.
 There may be error in reading of load cell.
 There may be error in reading of digital gauge.
 There may be an error in the readings using strain gauges.
 There may be environmental disturbances such as wind which may disturb the reading of
strain gauges.