A New Non-uniform Beam Element and Its Application to Buckling Analysis for Framed Structures

The non-uniform beam components are commonly used in engineering,while the method to analyze such component is not too satisfactory yet. A new non-uniform beam element with high precision was developed based on the non-linear analysis and the static condensation. Based on the interpolation theory, the displacement fields of the three-node non-uniform Euler-Bernoulli beam element were constructed at first: the quintic Hermite interpolation polynomial was used for the lateral displacement field and the quadratic Lagrange interpolation polynomial for the axial displacement field. Then,based on the basic assumptions of non-uniform Euler-Bernoulli beam whose section properties were continuously varying along its centroidal axis, the linear and geometric stiffness matrices of the three-node non-uniform beam element were derived according to the nonlinear finite element theory. Finally,the degrees of freedom ( DOFs) of the middle node of the element were eliminated using the static condensation method, and a new two-node non-uniform beam element including axial-force effect was obtained. The results indicate that each bar needs to be meshed with only one element could get a fairly accurate solution when it is applied to the stability analyses.