Shear deformable composite beams with channel-section on elastic foundation

The thin-walled composite beams with channel-sections considering the effects of shear deformation and two-parameter elastic foundation are developed. The current composite beam element includes the transverse shear and the restrained warping induced shear deformation by using the first-order shear deformation beam theory. The governing equations and the force–displacement relations are derived from the principle of stationary value of total potential energy. By applying the power series expansions of displacement components to the simultaneous ordinary differential equations, the explicit expressions for displacement parameters are derived. Finally, the element stiffness matrix is determined using the force–displacement relations. To verify accuracy and superiority of the beam element developed herein, the numerical solutions are presented and compared with the results obtained from the isoparametric beam element based on the Lagrangian interpolation polynomials, the three-dimensional analysis results using shell elements of ABAQUS, and the solutions by other researchers.

► We develop the thin-walled composite beams with channel-section.
► The explicit expressions for displacement parameters are derived.
► The element stiffness matrix is determined using the force–displacement relations.