Aspects of the dynamic behaviour of steel members

A fortran computer program has been developed to analyse the elastic–plastic behaviour of steel structural members subjected to dynamic loading. The program uses an incremental numerical procedure in which the governing equations are formed by consideration of the structure's energy and integrated with respect to time by the Newmark method. Large deflections, shear deformation and strain-rate sensitivity are all taken into account. The program has been used to investigate the dynamic behaviour of mild steel beams and bars with a solid rectangular cross-section. The fundamental axial and flexural frequencies of several linear examples were determined and the elastic and elastic–plastic responses of bars to suddenly applied axial loads were investigated in detail.