Beam buckling analysis in peridynamic framework

Peridynamics is a non-local continuum theory which accounts for long-range internal force/moment interactions. Peridynamic equations of motion are integro-differential equations, and only few analytical solutions to these equations are available. The aim of this paper is to formulate governing equations for buckling of beams and to derive analytical solutions for critical buckling loads based on the nonlinear peridynamic beam theory. For three types of boundary conditions, explicit expressions for the buckling loads are presented. The results are compared with the classical results for buckling loads. A very good agreement between the non-local and the classical theories is observed for the case of the small horizon sizes which shows the capability of the current approach. The results show that with an increase of the horizon size the critical buckling load slightly decreases for the fixed overall stiffness of the beam.