Elastic buckling of a two-part beam on Winkler's elastic foundation

This paper is devoted to the behavior of an axially compressed two-part beamr esting on elastic foundation. The beam was composed of two parts: rigid homogeneous part and sandwich three-layered part. The analytical model of the beam on the elastic foundation has been prepared. Winkler model has been assumed for the foundation description. Moreover, original function of deflection has been introduced and employed by the authors. The critical loads as a function of geometric and mechanical properties of the two-part beam and the parameters of Winkler's foundation were calculated. In addition, numerical analysis has been performed. Sample analytical and numerical calculations have been carried out, demonstrating good compatibility between the results attained with both models. The numerical analysis included the critical loads calculations for the beam with and without the elastic foundation. In both cases, the difference between analytical and numerical values of the critical loads did not exceed 8%.