Uncoupled Lateral Buckling Energy Functional for Beams with Dual Symmetry

This paper is concerned with uncoupling the lateral buckling energy functional for thin walled beams of dual symmetric sections so that only one solution function would be used in the solution process without appreciable loss of accuracy. This is achieved by consideration of equilibrium of forces in the lateral buckling plane as well as equilibrium in the vertical plane, for the uncoupled equilibrium state. Examples are presented to show the validity of the proposed functional. Results of analysis using the proposed functional are compared with exact values in the literature and are within two percent (2 %) of the exact values. It is concluded that the proposed functional is suitable for use in the calculation of lateral buckling strengths for beams with dual sections.