Thermal buckling and post-buckling of pinned–fixed Euler–Bernoulli beams on an elastic foundation

In this article, both thermal buckling and post-buckling of pinned–fixed beams resting on an elastic foundation are investigated. Based on the accurate geometrically non-linear theory for Euler–Bernoulli beams, considering both linear and non-linear elastic foundation effects, governing equations for large static deformations of the beam subjected to uniform temperature rise are derived. Due to the large deformation of the beam, the constraint forces of elastic foundation in both longitudinal and transverse directions are taken into account. The boundary value problem for the non-linear ordinary differential equations is solved effectively by using the shooting method. Characteristic curves of critical buckling temperature versus elastic foundation stiffness parameter corresponding to the first, the second, and the third buckling mode shapes are plotted. From the numerical results it can be found that the buckling load-elastic foundation stiffness curves have no intersection when the value of linear foundation stiffness parameter is less than 3000, which is different from the behaviors of symmetrically supported (pinned–pinned and fixed–fixed) beams. As we expect that the non-linear foundation stiffness parameter has no sharp influence on the critical buckling temperature and it has a slight effect on the post-buckling temperature compared with the linear one.