ABSTRACT
The efficient, industrially used, linear elastic preliminary design and analysis software VICONOPT is extended to handle the phenomenon of mode jumping in the advanced post-buckled region. Mode jumping is exhibited by a change, typically an increase of one, in the number of half-waves along the panel length. Simply supported isotropic panels are analysed with longitudinal compressive load. The initial buckling mode is necessarily a local skin mode in longitudinal compression. The results presented are compared with published theoretical and experimental results. The VICONOPT mode jumping theoretical assumptions ensure that the results are conservative, i.e. lower bound results. The results show VICONOPT provides an accurate and inexpensive analysis of the advanced post-buckling behaviour of panels.
