The Behaviour of Thin-walled BoxSections under Gross Deformation

A series of static tests on thin walled square box specimens, direction fixed at their ends, and subjected to axial overload until gross inelastic distortion occurred are described in this paper. Observations were made on the mode of buckling, the peak load sustained, and the load-shortening characteristics. A simple theory is also presented in which no account is taken of elastic deformations, but folding is assumed to occur along straight lines, together with kinking of the corner edges, and, by assuming a kinematically admissible pattern of such folds, a virtual work analysis is derived to predict theoretical load-shortening characteristics. Reasonable agreement is shown to exist between the theoretical and experimental results.


B. Rawlings and P. Shapland