Engineers use critical buckling analyses to determine whether or not a structure might collapse due to geometric instability. For tall, slender structures, buckling can occur even when a static stress analysis indicates safe stress levels throughout the structure. For such structures it is very important to check the model with regard to the safety factor of the stresses and critical buckling criteria.
- This tutorial uses the setup of the Beam Tower Static Stress Analysis tutorial as the basis of the critical buckling analysis. If you did not complete this tutorial, use the file Beam Tower Stress Results.ach in your tutorial models folder.
- The following properties and loads were already applied during the setup of the prerequisite stress analysis tutorial:
- Cross-sectional properties, as shown in the diagram below
- Beam material is Steel (AISI 4130) for all members
- Standard gravity load is applied in the -Z direction
- 5,000 lbf force in the -Z direction is applied to each of the two top corners
- Distributed load of 10 lbf/inch in the -Z direction is applied to the top horizontal beam
- Bottom two nodes are fully constrained
- Create a new design scenario for the critical buckling analysis, to preserve the setup and results of the linear static stress analysis.