Static analysis of thin-walled beams accounting for nonlinearities

This paper presents numerical results concerning the nonlinear analysis of thin-walled isotropic structures via 1D structural theories built with the Carrera Unified Formulation (CUF). Both geometrical and material nonlinearities are accounted for, and square, C- and T-shaped beams are considered. The results focus on equilibrium curves, displacement, and stress distributions. Comparisons with literature and 3D finite elements (FE) are provided to assess the formulation’s accuracy and computational efficiency. It is shown how 1D models based on Lagrange expansions of the displacement field are comparable to 3D FE regarding the accuracy but require considerably fewer degrees of freedom.