Buckling of non-uniformly heated isotropic beam: Experimental and theoretical investigations

Influence of non-uniform heating on critical buckling temperature of an aluminium beam has been investigated experimentally with the help of a novel experimental set-up developed in-house. Non-linear finite element analysis, considering the initial geometric imperfection, has been carried out to compare the experimentally obtained typical load-deflection curve. The linear critical buckling temperature predicted numerically are validated with analytical solutions. Experimental results revealed that critical buckling temperature of the non-uniformly heated beam greatly differs from the uniformly heated beam. It is also observed that the location of heat source and resulting non-uniform temperature variation influences the critical buckling temperature significantly. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.