FLEXURAL BUCKLING ANALYSIS OF CRACKED BEAM-COLUMNS BY THE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Abstract

The crack induced flexibility and hence crack-spring.stiffness relevant for the study of pre-cracked concentric and eccentrically loaded columns with different boundary conditions is derived asymptotically herein. The finite element procedure is then employed to study the column response and sensitivity to both concentric and eccentric loads. As expected the results obtained show remarkable response sensitivity and reduction in strength with increasing crack depths and are compared with those published in the literature. The results also show that influence of mid height crack induced flexibility is to reduce the load carrying capacity of such columns provided they are loaded eccentrically.