Stability of beamlike lattice trusses

A simple procedure is presented for predicting the buckling loads associated with general instability of large repetitive beamlike trusses. The procedure is based on replacing the original lattice structure by an equivalent continuum beam model and obtaining analytic solutions for the beam model. The continuum beam model accounts for warping and shear deformation in the plane of the cross section and is characterized by its strain energy and potential energy due to initial stresses from which the governing differential equations are derived. The high accuracy of the buckling predictions of the proposed continuum beam is demonstrated by means of numerical examples.