Viscous Damping, Plasticity and Buckling on Large Amplitude Vibrations of Beams

Curious dynamic behaviour that beams may experience is discussed in this article. In the model of the beams a simple type of viscous damping, an elastoplastic stress-strain relation and Von Karman type of non-linearity are assumed. The continuum system is discretized following a finite element, p-version approach, and the equations of motion are numerically solved in the time domain. The analyses focuses on the qualitative differences that appear in the oscillations of damped beams when plasticity is present and on a buckling like phenomenon that plasticity may induce, leading to a dynamic behaviour difficult to anticipate.