Stability of multi-step flexural-shear plates with varying cross-section

In this paper, multi-story buildings with shear-wall structures and with narrow rectangular plane configuration are modeled as a multi-step flexural-shear plate with varying cross-section for buckling analysis. The governing differential equation of such a plate is established. Using appropriate transformations, the equation is reduced to analytically solvable equations by selecting suitable expressions of the distribution of stiffness. The exact solutions for buckling of such a one-step flexural-shear plate with variable stiffness are derived for several cases. A new exact approach that combines the transfer matrix method and closed from solution of one-step flexural-shear plate with continuously varying stiffness is presented for stability analysis of multi-step non-uniform flexural-shear plate. A numerical example shows that the present methods are easy to implement and efficient.