Post-local-buckling of fiber-reinforced plastic composite structural shapes using discrete plate analysis

•Spline finite strip method for post-buckling analysis of restrained plate is presented.•Post-buckling behavior of FRP structural shapes is analyzed using discrete plate analysis.•Spline finite strip method is capable of efficiently evaluating post-buckling of FRP shapes.

In this paper, post-buckling of rectangular composite plates rotationally restrained at the longitudinal unloaded edges and subjected to end shortening strain at the simply-supported loaded edges is analyzed using the first-order shear deformation plate theory-based spline finite strip method, and its application to post-local-buckling of fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) composite structural shapes is illustrated with discrete plate analysis. Two cases of elastically- and rotationally-restrained plates are analyzed using the spline finite strip method: rotationally-restrained along both the unloaded boundary edges (RR) and one rotationally-restrained and the other free along the unloaded edges (RF). The two cases of rotationally-restrained plates (i.e., the RR and RF plates) are further treated as the discrete plates of closed and open section FRP shapes, and by considering the effect of elastic restraints at the joint connections of flanges and webs, post-local-buckling of various FRP shapes under end shortening is studied. The numerical comparisons with the finite element modeling demonstrate that the proposed discrete plate analysis technique and spline finite strip method can be used as an efficient and valid tool for post-local-buckling analysis of FRP shapes.