Int, J. Mech. Sci. Vol, 33, No, 7, pp.

529-539, 1991

Printed in Great Britain,

0020-7403/91 $3.00 + .00 1991 Pergamon Press plc

ON PLASTIC BUCKLING P. Tu~cu

PREDICTIONS

Faculty of Applied Science, Universit~ de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada J1K 2R1

(Received 5 November 1990)

Abstract--The discrepancy between the predictions of flow and deformation theories is investigated. The sensitivity of flow theory analysis to the interaction of multiaxial stresses in the pre-buckling state is reviewed. The predictions of the two theories are further examined based on critical strains at buckling, similar to the sheet metal forming limit curves. The extent to which the material nonlinearity of plastic flow is reflected in critical strains is also discussed for a variety of circumstances. INTRODUCTION

The predictions of the most commonly employed flow and deformation theories for critical bifurcation states in plastic buckling analyses exhibit large discrepancies, while the experimental observations favor the deformation theory results (Hutchinson [11). On the other hand, the maximum support load computations for imperfect specimens produce the desired agreement in general, due to the well known imperfection sensitivity of the flow theory analysis (note that maximum load computations can also be performed for perfect specimens, by employing general nonlinear analyses, e.g. [21). Reductions in flow theory predictions can be obtained from bifurcation analyses as well, by introducing small interactive multiaxial stressing along with the nominal one [3-51. The corresponding reductions in critical stresses in this case also result through a similar mechanism to imperfection sensitivity, namely lowering of the moduli. Since imperfection geometry in the shape of the buckling mode in general, and the imperfection magnitude for some particular cases raise concern, flow theory bifurcation analysis based on interactive stressing during the pre-buckling state, can be a favorable alternative to imperfection sensitivity analysis for some problems. This aspect will be reviewed here briefly. A comparison of the predictions of the flow and deformation theories is also given based on the critical strains, similar to the study of the tensile instabilities in sheet metal forming limit curves. Employing various forms of power law hardening stress-strain relationships, we examine the sensitivity of the critical strain predictions to changes in the stiffness of the material, using both numerical, as well as some closed form solutions in the case of the deformation theory.
PROBLEM FORMULATION

In this analysis the bifurcation of equilibrium approach is employed to define the critical state at buckling. The theoretical foundation of plastic bifurcation theory was laid down by Hill [61, where the solid in its current equilibrium state is subjected to a virtual incremental deformation and the uniqueness of the solution is subsequently tested. For the plate buckling examined here the bifurcation theory with the usual DMV (or von Karman) approximations is applied since the strains are expected to be small and the characteristic wavelength of deformation is large relative to the sheet thickness. The bifurcation analysis within the context of DMV shallow-shell theory employed here is given in Hutchinson [11. In the current deformed state of the plate the material points are identified by Cartesian coordinates x~ located at one corner of the middle surface of the sheet. The in-plane coordinates xl and x z are aligned with the principal axis of the plate while x 3 is the coordinate normal to the middle surface. The displacements of the mid-surface are denoted by u~ and w along xl, x2 and x3, respectively, where the Greek indices range from 1 to 2. According to DMV approximations the strain-rate tensor g~p is given from

MS 33:7~C

529

530

P. Tu~cu

where/~,~ a n d / ( , ~ represent the stretching and bending strain-rates which are given by
E~tfl = ~(u,,a + 1

a~,,), /~,a

= - w,,a "

(2)

where a comma denotes partial differentiation. If a rate constitutive relation of the form

6~a = ~~ ~

(3)

is adopted with the plane stress moduli ,a~v to be defined later, the following incremental relationships for the membrane stress rate and moment rate tensors are obtained t3

The condition for bifurcation under the assumption of DMV theory is obtained from the functional (Hutchinson [1])

where A is the middle surface of the plate. The stress state at the onset of buckling is determined from F(fi,, ~) = 0 for some non-zero velocity field, while bifurcation is ruled out for all kinematically admissible fields rendering F(fi,, ~) > 0. For the simply supported rectangular plates considered in this analysis the following field is taken to represent the anticipated mode of buckling ff = +__Ctsin sin\~b--- j, fi, = 0 (6)

where C is the relative amplitude, m, n are integers, t is the thickness and a, b denote the plate dimensions along x~ and x2, respectively. The simple support condition on all four edges given by ~=Mll =0 for xl = 0, a for x2 = 0, b

(7)

!~ = /~/22 -~- 0

are satisfied by the choice of (6). The critical condition at bifurcation is determined upon substitution of (6) into (5) and integrating over the middle surface. When the stress resultants N l l tO"11, N22 = ta22 are substituted, the critical condition is given by
=

mn

"~

O"11 S

+ 0.22

= 0.

(8)

For a particular a22/all ratio specified, the values of m and n minimizing (8) determines the mode shape and the desired critical solution. Note that since the numerical results presented here correspond to a rectangle with a > b and buckling along the axis x 1 is considered, we have n = 1 and m > 1, throughout. The incremental plane stress moduli is next defined for J2 flow and deformation theories assuming isotropic hardening. For a 3-D rate constitutive law of the form (3) the moduli Lou for the J2 flow theory are given by

Liju = ~

~(6~k~jl + 6it6jk) + ~

ij6kZ --

Si~Skl

(9)

where E is Young's modulus, v is Poisson's xatio, s o is the stress deviator and 6~j denotes the Kronecker delta. The parameter q in Eqn (9) is ,I 2 q = [ (1 + v)~-, E2E,_E,) + 11 2~e(lo)

On plastic buckling predictions

531

Here ae is the effective stress and Et denotes the tangent modulus. We also note that in Eqn (9), plastic loading condition is incorporated as required by the bifurcation theory. The plasticity effects are therefore introduced as a hypoelastic law. Since the plate is assumed to be in an approximate plane stress condition, the incremental plane stress moduli are obtained from

( L~033 L33~:r/.
/S~#~r = L~#rr \

(11)

L3333

The deformation theory moduli are given upon substitution of vs and E, for v and E in Eqn (11), where E~ = trdee is the secant modulus, 8, is the effective strain and
E-~ = E + 2 " (12)

The formulation for the cylindrical shell problem is given by Tu~cu [3]. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The material behaviour employed in the plate buckling analysis is represented by the following uniaxial stress-strain relationship a for a ~< ar ar ( a ~ ) N for a ~> ar

e er

(13)

where er, ar( = Eer) denote the initial yield strain and stress and N represents the strain hardening characteristic. The results corresponding to the cylindrical shell were reproduced from Tugcu [3], where the following Ramberg-Osgood type of uniaxial representation was adopted
-

er

= --

ar

7\at/ "

(14)

Here er and a r now define secant yield strain and stress. The behaviour of the buckling predictions under interaction is discussed next. As previously shown in Refs [3-5], the flow theory predictions are significantly more sensitive to interactive loading than those of the deformation theory. In fact, for a cylindrical shell, smaller flow theory critical loads than those of the deformation theory were predicted in Tu~cu [3], for some regions of particular interactions. These results, corresponding to torsion-axial load and torsion-pressure interaction, are reproduced in Figs 1 and 2, respectively, where a shell geometry with radius-to-length and thickness-to-radius ratios of (R/L)= 0.1 and (t/R)= 0.05 is considered. The material properties were taken as (E/ar) = 1000, and N = 6 in Eqn (14) with a Poisson's ratio of v = 0.3. No particular boundary condition was imposed at the ends. The interaction curves show the stress values normalized by ar. The directions of the various stress components are taken along a cylindrical coordinate system with radial, circumferential and axial directions r, 0, z. We also note that portions of the curves in Figs 1 and 2 where (affar) < 1 still represent elasticplastic buckling due to the form of Eqn (14), for which, unlike Eqn (13), no definite yield point is defined. The critical states for a thin plate under interactive loading were previously reported in Refs [4, 5]. A typical example corresponding to (E/ar) = 1000, N = 5 in Eqn (13) and v = 0.3 will be given for a plate geometry of (a/b) = 5, (b/t) = 40. The critical stress states under the application of biaxial loading is depicted in Fig. 3, which reveals that the flow theory predictions are considerably reduced if both loads are compressive, the kind that can be anticipated from the imposition of simple support boundary condition during experiments. Therefore a better assessment of the prebuckling stress state accounting for the

532

P. Tu(3cu C~z~

1.4

1.,z
I

,11.o
/
I

DE E

/i/i II
/ FLOW

06

\//\
j~,.

0,
0.2
%

/./
.,.,, ..-,
~ |~'~ |

- 2.4

2.0

1.6

1.2

0.8

0./,

O~

0.8

12,

1.6

0"=,

Cry

cry

FIG. 1. The interaction buckling curves for a cylindrical shell under axial load and torque.

1.4I Cry

l/ I \\ II/
//
1.0

FLOW \ OEF

0.8 r

~,

,/
/

-,, \
\

I/
1 0.8
I I , I

0 21
I 0.2 1 0.4 I 0.6 I 0.8

"~..
I 1.0
i

0.6

0.t,

0.2

12

oee
Oy

o-ee
cry

FIO. 2. The interaction buckling curves for a cylindrical shell under pressure and torque.

interactions from the set-up and testing procedure, small as they may be, can provide a favorable argument for the flow theory bifurcation predictions. By analogy, we can also presume that similar reductions can perhaps be achieved in 3-D analyses as well. For instance, in the case of cylinder buckling under uniaxial compression given in Fig. 1, the effect of a=e is likely to be produced with non-zero out-of-plane shear stresses which can be triggered due to the boundary conditions, friction or misalignments. Next we present a comparison of the flow and deformation theory predictions based on critical strain values, similar to the forming limit curves in sheet metal forming studies.

On plastic bucklingpredictions

533

cry
Z.B

FLOW

-2.0

1.6

O'B f
,
O-22
O-y I
0.8

I
0.4 0

I
0.4

I
0.8

0-22
~-~

FIG. 3. The interaction bucklingcurves for a plate under biaxial compression. Under certain circumstances, the effect of the geometric and material nonlinearities on critical strains can be examined from closed form solutions in case of the deformation theory, thus allowing a direct comparison with the elastic solutions as well. We consider the uniaxial plate buckling for the geometry previously discussed. A parametric study involving er in the uniaxial stress-strain law (13) is performed for both theories. Some particular stress-strain behavior corresponding to (E/at) = 1000, 2000 and 10000 in Eqn (13) are depicted in Fig. 4. We assume that the er variations are imposed by changes in E while trr is kept constant, so that the ordinate in Fig. 4 properly represents a comparison of the real tr values as well. In this figure, which only covers a limited range of strains in an enlarged scale, we note that a reduction in er results in a uniaxial response which is stiffer for both the elastic and plastic strain increments. The tangent modulus for the particular choice of (13b) is given by E (-~-a"]1-N E, = N \ t r r I (15)

which reflects the stiffer plastic response for increasing E/ar. Note that the discontinuity of the tangent modulus at yield is immaterial to the analysis if the buckling is ascertained to occur plastically. A stiffer response is also resulted in Eqn (13) with decreasing N values. The critical stresses for both theories corresponding to uniaxial loading are plotted in Fig. 5 for increasing E/ar values. From this figure we observe that the flow theory results are very sensitive to any change in E/ar with almost a linear dependence. The deformation theory results exhibit far less sensitivity, especially for large values of E/a r. For small E/ar values, the agreement between the predictions of the two theories improves notably. In a demonstration of the differences of the two theories, Hutchinson l-1] examined, among others, the circular plate buckling under radial compression. A similar behavior for the deformation theory bifurcation stresses was obtained for the particular choice of the strain hardening parameter (N). In Ref. I-1], as well as Ref. [7], the circular plate critical stresses were presented against the parameter 12(1 --- vZ)er (16)

534

P. T u O c u

N=5

2.0

ol
-

1.2

0.8

0.4

I
0

0~01

0.002

0.003

0.004

0.005

0.006

FIG. 4. The uniaxial stress-strain curves for different values of

E/a~,.

Cry
8000.

6000.

~000.

F.

2000.

t,00. O. 0.,~ 0.8 1.2 1.6 2.0 2.4 C~

FIG. 5. The variation of critical stress with

E/ar

for uniaxial plate buckling.

On plastic buckling predictions

535

where for a clamped plate, k ~ 3.832 is the smallest non-zero root of the Bessel function of the first kind of order one. In Eqn (16), t and R are the same as defined previously pertaining to the geometry studied. The choice of Eqn (16) is convenient since the critical stress in the elastic region given by a,, = 12(~-~ v2) (17)

when normalized by ar and plotted against Eqn (16), coincides with the elastic part of the normalized uniaxial stress-strain curve. The asymptotic behavior of deformation theory bifurcation stresses in Refs [1, 6] with increasing parameter (16) therefore indicates insensitivity to increases in t/R and/or er. Note that such near asymptotic behaviour can be observed for flow theory as well, depending on the material properties and the particular problem, such as the same circular plate for simply supported boundary conditions as given in Needleman I-7], for a low hardening solid. Here, attention will be focused on the critical strains for variations in material nonlinearity, such as given in Fig. 4. In Table 1, values for some particular points of Fig. 5 for the deformation theory plate buckling predictions are tabulated. Of particular interest in this table are the buckling strains which only vary by about 10% between the cases (E/ar)= 666.7 and (E/ar) = 10 000. The flow theory critical strains, meanwhile, vary more than 10 times between the two ends of the respective curve in Fig. 5, for the range of E/or covered. A similar comparison for buckling under biaxial compressive loading corresponding to a prebuckling stress state of (a22/a 11) = 0.1 (a22 compressive) is shown in Table 2 for deformation theory. The insensitivity of the deformation theory critical strains to stiffness changes in the material response depicted in Fig. 4, is an anticipated result in view of the previously documented studies of the tensile instability strains in sheet metal forming limit curves. The variations observed in critical strains given in Tables 1 and 2 are due to the compressibility of the material, as will be shown below. Such variations, however, are not generally expected in case of the large plastic strains encountered in tensile instability analyses employing deformation theory, for the kind of stiffness variations invoked in Fig. 4. Flow theory critical strains, as discussed above for the respective curve in Fig. 5, in general, reflects any change in the material nonlinearity imposed either by N or E/% in modellizations (13) and alike. The column buckling under axial compression is a well known exception, as will be mentioned later.

TABLE 1. PLATE BUCKLING, UNIAXIALCOMPRESSION(DEFORMATION THEORY V = 0.3)

E/~r oll/~rl" ~11

666.67 1000 2000 10 000

1.062 1.157 1.337 1.859

0.00202 0.00207 0.00214 0.00222

TABLE 2. PLATE BUCKLING, BIAXIAL COMPRESSION (DEFORMATION THEORY (~22/O11) = 0.1, V = 0.3)

666.67 1000 2000 10000

1.025 1.117 1.290 1.790

1.075 1.171 1.352 1.877

0.00173 0.00175 0.00179 0.00184

536

P. Tut3cu

A rather simple closed form solution will now be given by considering the uniaxial buckling of square plates. The bifurcation stress in this case is obtained from Eqn (8) upon substitution of the moduli, a = b and m = n = 1. For flow theory this gives
E a, ~\~-J 9 + (5-4v)(Sv - 1) (1-2v) 2 2

which reflects the strong dependence of bifurcation stress to the variation in Elar as shown in Fig. 5. Replacing E and v by Es and vs from Eqn (12) we obtain the deformation theory bifurcation stress, given as
91+ &Et[3 _ 4~(2v ~) L 2 + E ErE ~
3 - E(2V-

O"ll

]
"

~ 4 } 3 + E ( 2 V - 1)

"(19)

1 ) - ~ T - ( Z v - 1)z

For an incompressible solid with v = 0.5, Eqn (19) simplifies considerably to: all 12 -- + (20)

Using E, = NE, for the particular choice of Eqn (13), the critical bifurcation strain for deformation theory is found to be
l

Evidently from Eqn (21) it is seen that no dependence on the value of E/ar is exhibited for any variation of the kind shown in Fig. 4, as long as the value of the parameter N is not changed. From Eqn (21) we also note that the identical strain states at buckling for the different materials of Fig. 4, would each have a different plastic strain component. N = 1 in Eqn (21) gives the classical result for elastic buckling where the critical strain state is given in terms of the geometry alone. From Eqn (21), we also observe a rather weak dependence on the strain hardening parameter N, for the particular problem considered. For instance, for a given plate geometry, the critical strain for a low hardening material with N = 10 is still 83.1% of that of the elastic case (N = 1). It is interesting to note that the deformation theory results given above were resulted due to the choice of the uniaxial law (13) for which E, = NEt. Different forms of uniaxial behaviour are studied next in conjunction with other buckling problems. The flow theory bifurcation stress for the circular clamped plate mentioned previously is given by Refs [1, 7]

I(4E(3+~) .....

The deformation theory critical stress is obtained as described earlier k2(t~2 { ( 12

(T r r

\'R)

3 + e,)

4E~(3+~) } Es']'_[3 E, 2E, 1 _ 2 v ) j 2 "

E,

-E (

(23)

The sensitivity of the deformation theory results to different forms of uniaxial law is examined using an incompressible solid in Eqn (23) with the kind of uniaxial law also

On plastic buckling predictions

537

commonly employed due to the continuity of tangent modulus at yield, given as Ref. [7]
er Nkar}

-N- +I

fora1>ar

(24)

For N = 5 and (t/R) = 0.04, the critical effective strains at bifurcation for (E/ar) = I000 and 10 000 are found to be ee = 0.00147 and 0.00107, respectively. While not of practical interest due to the very small range involved, a substantial relative difference in critical strains nevertheless results from the particular choice of Eqn (24). As discussed below, however, such differences in critical strains can only arise on the very small strain range in the neighborhood of the elastic limit. If Eqn (13b) is employed instead of Eqn (24), e~ is independent of E/ar, which, from Eqn (23), is obtained as

For the circular plate being considered and N = 5, Eqn (25) gives ee = 0.00104 which is slightly above the yield strain for the curve with E/ar = 1000 in Fig. 4. Note that a cross comparison between the predictions of the uniaxial laws (13b) and (24) is not intended here. The extent to which the strain-hardening characteristics of the materials in Fig. 4 is reflected by (24), greatly depends on the value of the bifurcation strain. This will be demonstrated considering a cylindrical shell under uniaxial compression. The results corresponding to the Ramberg-Osgood type of uniaxial law [Eqn (14)] are tabulated in Table 3 for N = 6 and v = 0.5. The sensitivity to the variation of E/a r is examined at two levels of bifurcation strain resulted by (t/R) = 0.005 and 0.05. When incompressibility is assumed the critical stress given by Tu~cu [3] for uniaxial compression reduces to the well known result of 'z~ 2 t Ex//~ E~ 3R (26)

for the deformation theory, while replacing E s by E in Eqn (26) gives the flow theory formula. From Table 3 we note that a high sensitivity to the value of E/ar results in bifurcation strains for (t/R) = 0.005. For the thicker shell with (t/R) = 0.05, for which the critical strains are also increased by almost a similar ratio, we note that the difference between the critical strain values is greatly reduced to about 5%. The proximity of bifurcation strains for this case improves further when E/a r is increased to 50000 as shown in the same table. Significant differences in the moduli still remain, however, as shown in Table 3. It can therefore be concluded that for bifurcation at relatively larger strains the predictions with the additive type of power laws [i.e. Eqns (14) and (24)] also become independent of the changes depicted in Fig. 4, similar to the uniaxial law (13), which for the problem under consideration gives a critical strain value of ezz = 2t 1 3 R ,4/-N -" (27)

TABLE 3. CYLINDRICALSHELLBUCKLING,UNIAXIALCOMPRESSION(DEFORMATIONTHEORY
v = 0.5)

E/ay
1000 10000 1000 10 000 50000

t/R
0.005 0.005 0.05 0.05 0.05

E,/ar
568.84 1177.81 122.35 190.06 250.35

Eda~
180.25 217.66 22.71 32.19 41.90

- o,,/~r
1.121 1.772 1.757 2.607 3.414

- ~,,
0.00197 0.00151 0.01436 0.01372 0.01364

538

P. Tu~3cu

A greater sensitivity to the strain hardening parameter N is observed from Eqn (27), contrary to the previously discussed plate problem [i.e. Eqn (21)]. For a given shell geometry, the critical strain even for the high hardening material with N = 3 is only 57.7% of its elastic value (N = 1) for the case considered here. Next we discuss the buckling of the cruciform column under compression as an example of the most pronounced discrepancy between the predictions of the flow and deformation theories. For a stubby specimen buckling occurs as a result of the twisting of the flanges about the axis of the column, therefore only the shear moduli enter the critical stress formula, reflecting the "shear modulus difference" for the two theories. For this case, the flow theory critical stress is identical to its elastic counterpart, the difference being the critical strains between the two cases. For flow theory, therefore, variations in material nonlinearity of plastic flow will be reflected in critical strains, regardless of the way it is imposed. The deformation theory critical stress is given by az~ = 3E --+2vEs (28) 1

where t and b represent the thickness and width of an individual flange, respectively. For an incompressible solid, the corresponding critical strain at buckling along the axis z of the column is found to be ~zz = - 3 \ b J (29)

which is the same as the elastic solution. The deformation theory critical stress is therefore nothing more than the substitution of the elastic buckling strain into the uniaxial stress-strain relationship. Note that for a compressible solid, a similar indifference in critical strains previously reported in Tables 1 and 2 for the variation of E/a r is exhibited here for a variation in N as well, as shown in Table 4. The results in this table are generated employing the uniaxial law (13) and the particular values of (b/t) = 0.07 and v = 1/3. Results corresponding to two different N values (N = 5 and 10) are presented for (E/at) = 1000 and 10 000. Practically identical critical strains are obtained for the variation in N for a given E/ar value. Further, as can be deduced from Eqn (28), the critical strain with increasing E/ay tends to converge to that of an incompressible material given by Eqn (29). One example where the critical strain state for both theories is independent of the kind of variation in material properties depicted in Fig. 4, is that of the column buckling under uniaxial compression for an incompressible solid obeying Eqn (13). For this case, along with geometry and boundary conditions, the tangent modulus defines the bifurcation stress which therefore is also identical for both theories. The critical buckling strain is then given as a multiple fraction of the inverse of the strain hardening parameter N. However, when the contribution of shear distortion is accounted for [8], the flow theory predictions for the materials depicted in Fig. 4 display a relatively strong dependency on the value of E/ar, with the exception of the rigid-plastic limit. When the critical state is in the neighborhood of the yield point due to geometry and/or the E/a r value as previously shown in Fig. 5, the buckling stress predictions of the flow and
TABLE 4. CRUCIFORM COLUMN BUCKLING, UNIAXIALCOMPRESSION (DEFORMATION THEORY V : 1/3)
E/a r N ~7~/a r ~:~.

1000 1000 10000 10000

5 10 5 10

1.119 1.058 1.753 1.323

0.00176 0.00175 0.00165 0.00165

On plastic buckling predictions

539

deformation theories show close agreement. The geometry and material properties in some similar studies are chosen to concord with this fact. For the type of uniaxial law given by Eqn (13b) a difference of 50% in the strains would only produce a variation of 8.5% in the stresses for relatively high hardening with N = 5. Therefore, it is evident that verification based on stresses does not reveal the effect of material nonlinearity studied above from an investigation of critical strains.
REFERENCES 1. J. W. HUTCHINSON,Plastic Buckling, in Advances in Applied Mechanics, Vol. 14, p. 67 (edited by C. S. Yih). Academic Press, New York (1974). 2. P. T u ~ c u and J. SCHROEDER,Plastic deformation and stability of pipes exposed to external couples. Int. J. Solids Structures 15, 643 (1979). 3. P. Tudcu, Bifurcation in elastic-plastic rotating shells under combined loading. Trans. CSME 9, 181 (1985). 4. A. GJELSVlKand G. S. LIN, Plastic buckling of plates with edge frictional shear effects, J. Engng Mech. 133, 953 (1987). 5. P. Tu~cu, Plate buckling in the plastic range. Int. J. Mech. Sci. 33, 1 (1991). 6. R. HILL,A general theory of uniqueness and stability in elastic-plastic solids. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 6, 236 (1958). 7. A. NEEDLEMAN,Postbifurcation behaviour and imperfection sensitivity of elastic-plastic circular plates. Int. J. Mech. Sci. 17, 1 (1975). 8. R. HILL and M. J. SEWELI.,A general theory of inelastic column failure--I. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 8, 105 (1960).