• Computational Structural Engineering
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.191-204
• /
• 1998

The general formulation for free vibration and stability analysis of unsymmetric thin-wared space frames is presented in case where the shear deformation effects are neglected. The kinetic and total potential energies are derived by applying the extended virtual work principle, introducing displacement parameters defined at the arbitrarily chosen axis and including warping deformation and second order terms of finite semitangential rotations. In formulating the finite element procedure, cubic Hermitian polynomials are utilized as shape functions of the two node space frame element. Mass, elastic stiffness, and geometric stiffness matrices for the unsymmetric thin-walled section are evaluated, and load-correction stiffness matrices for off-axis distributed loadings are considered. In order to illustrate the accuracy and practical usefulness of this formulation, finite element solutions for the free vibration and stability problems of thin-walled beam-columns and space frames are presented and compared with available solutions.