ABSTRACT

In this paper, a model for the general buckling problem of thin walled structures is validated in the case of lateral-torsional buckling. It is based on various refinements of Prokić (1990) warping function for which longitudinal displacements at selected nodes of the profile geometry are taken as additional degrees of freedom to describe the contour warping. This formulation, different from most published theories that include Vlassov warping function, has the advantage of presenting a single approach that enables the analysis of arbitrary cross sections (closed/opened or mixed) without any restrictions or distinctions related to the geometry of the profile.