Elastic buckling of columns with end restraint effects

It is a well established fact that the behaviour of columns as part of a structure is affected by the end restraints. The main aim of the current study is to develop a criterion of stability capable of predicting an impending failure by elastic buckling of a column of a structure. The rigidities at the ends of a column element are modelled using rotational and translational springs, which have been considered by taking into account their coupling effects. The role of the springs is to model the nodal restraints of any column of a given structure. This formulation offers significant practical advantages in the elastic buckling analysis of such structures. This approach is performed through a relationship to several parameters, such as the non-dimensional rotational and translational restraint indices and the effective length factor K. The approach was applied in analysing the elastic buckling of a number of structures and good results were obtained, thus justifying its reliability. In determining the effective length factor K, a marked difference was noted between the results obtained using the Eurocode approach and that proposed by the current study, particularly in the case of non-braced structures.