Buckling of Multicracked Columns

This paper presents an investigation on the behavior of cracked simply supported beams in the stability framework. In particular, beams with one or more noninteracting edge-cracks are considered. The cracks are modeled as massless rotational springs. The spring constant is determined on the basis of the energy released due to the crack and Castigliano's theorem. This method has been employed by the authors to compute exact critical loads for a cracked T-column with various end conditions and crack locations. Enforcing displacements, slope, moment continuity and additional conditions related to the presence of the cracks, analytical expressions for the characteristic equations are derived for different crack-to-beam depth ratios, geometry and location of the cracks. The parametric studies reveal how the buckling load of a cracked column is affected by the presence of additional lateral cracks. The influence of the lateral cracks on the buckling is more evident when they move towards the midspan as well as their depth increases.