Geometric and material non-linear behaviour of beam-columns

The present study is concerned with the geometric and material non-linear behaviour of space frame structures comprising thin walled circular and square hollow sections. For the realistic prediction of the non-linear behaviour of a structure, the numerical analysis must incorporate the effect of both geometric and material non-linearities. A simple and efficient formulation of beam-column elements for the large displacement analysis of elasto-plastic frame structures is presented. An incremental-iterative method based on the arc length method combined with the Newton-Raphson method was employed for the solution of the non-linear governing equations. Iterations were not suppressed at any stage of the present scheme. The simplicity, accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method is demonstrated through various numerical examples