First order elastoplastic GBT analysis of tubular beams

This paper aims to present an original formulation of Generalised Beam Theory (GBT) intended to perform first order elastoplastic analysis of thin-walled members, made of isotropic non-linear material and subjected to arbitrary deformation. The J2-flow theory is used to model plasticity in conjunction with the Euler-Backward return-mapping algorithm. After presenting the formulation, its application is illustrated by means of the first order analysis of beams with (i) rectangular hollow section (RHS) and (ii) LiteSteel section, made of an elastic-perfectly plastic material and subjected to distributed and point loading, respectively. The GBT results, which include equilibrium paths, displacement profiles, stress diagrams, 3D stress/displacement con-tours and deformed shapes, are compared with the ones obtained by ABAQUS code using a shell finite ele-ment model. GBT and ABAQUS results display a very good agreement.