PROVIDING THE UNDERSTANDING TO THE CRITICAL SUCCESS OF DESIGNS FOR MAXIMUM ENERGY ABSORPTION DURING COLLAPSING AUTOMOBILE

Buckling and postbuckling behavior is critical to the success of certain designs. For example, crash worthiness of an automobile requires that particular vehicle components collapse in ways that maximize energy absorption. On the other hand, successful designs of imperfection-sensitive, thin-walled shell structures, ranging from beverage containers to large pressure vessels, must prevent unintentional buckling.

The topics include:

• Identify an imperfection-sensitive structure.
• Extract closely spaced eigenvalues efficiently
• Use the Riks method effectively.