Super convergent laminated composite beam element for lateral stability analysis

The super convergent laminated composite beam element is newly derived for the lateral stability analysis. For this, a theoretical model of the laminated composite beams is developed based on the first-order shear deformation beam theory. The present laminated beam takes into account the transverse shear and the restrained warping induced shear deformation. The second-order coupling torque resulting from the geometric nonlinearity is rigorously derived. From the principle of minimum total potential energy, the stability equations and force-displacement relationships are derived and the explicit expressions for the displacement parameters are presented by applying the power series expansions of displacement components to simultaneous ordinary differential equations. Finally, the member stiffness matrix is determined using the force-displacement relationships. In order to show accuracy and superiority of the beam element developed by this study, the critical lateral buckling moments for bisymmetric and monosymmetric I-beams are presented and compared with other results available in the literature, the isoparametric beam elements, and shell elements from ABAQUS.