Elastic Buckling of Steel Columns Under Axial Compression

Abstract

In the present study elastic buckling of steel columns with three different cross sections, i.e. square, rectangle and circle cross sections, and two different boundary conditions, i.e. fixed-free(F-F) and pinned-pinned (P-P) boundary conditions, under axial compression has been investigated. At first, the basic equations of the problem have been given. Then solutions are found and the effects of the boundary conditions, cross sections, slenderness ratios on the buckling loads of the steel columns have been discussed. For the solution of the problem not only numerical computations have been performed but also finite element modeling (FEM) has been employed. For the validation of the present study, the results of numerical computations have been compared with the results of FEM, and a very good agreement has been achieved.