Buckling strength analysis of adhesively bonded aluminum hat sections

This paper provides an analytical solution for the critical buckling stress of adhesively bonded aluminum hat sections under static axial compression. The governing rectangular plate member of the structure is treated based on the differential equation for out-of-plane deflections of thin plates. Finite element eigenvalue buckling analysis is performed to verify the assumed simply supported boundary conditions for common edges between adjacent plate elements. Elastic restraint is applied to the two loaded edges of the rectangular plate, and the relative critical buckling stress is computed according to the transcendental equations. It is found from experiments that there is no adhesive bonding failure in the elastic buckling stage. The analytical solution yields buckling stress predictions which are in reasonable agreement with measured values.