MODE JUMPING AND ATTRACTIVE PATHS IN MULTIMODE ELASTIC BUCKLING

Abstract

This paper summarizes a part of the first author's Ph.D. Thesis completely devoted to multimode elastic buckling within an FEM strategy. The theoretical arguments unfold among critical points on radial paths (the unique post-critical paths variationally defined), algebraic characterizations, proposition demonstrations and so on, by aiming to prove that the complexity of the phenomenon of multimode buckling (secondary bifurcations, post-critical attractive paths) can be theoretically explained. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.