Non-linear buckling of elliptical curved beams

• Non-linear buckling behavior of elliptical curved beams is performed for the first time.
• A non-linear buckling isogeometric model is developed for elliptical curved beams.
• The effects of various parameters on buckling of elliptical curved beams are reported.
• All the snap-through, bifurcation and snap-back buckling phenomena are predicted to occur.

In this paper, a study on non-linear buckling and postbuckling behavior of elliptical curved beams is presented. An isogeometric analysis framework with the use of an arc-length iteration technique is developed based on the shear deformable theory and accounts for the geometric non-linearity in von Kármán sense. The proposed method is capable of exactly modeling the geometry of elliptical curved beams by means of NURBS (non-uniform rational B-splines) basis functions. The solutions of the present model are validated by comparing with experimental and numerical results of the literature. Numerical examples are carried out to investigate the effects of different geometric parameters on the buckling and postbuckling of elliptical curved beams with hinged–hinged, clamped–clamped and clamped–hinged boundary conditions.