Thermal Buckling Analysis of Cyclic Symmetry Mounting Structure

Buckling analysis is a technique used to determine buckling load and buckled mode shape. Buckling load is the critical load at which a structure becomes unstable while buckled mode shape is the characteristic shape associated with a structure's buckled response. In this paper, the elastic thermal buckling of a heated cyclic symmetry structure is carried out by means of finite element method. The buckling cyclic symmetry analysis is focused on a ring-strut-ring structure which is extensively used as a basic element in rotating machines. The linear eigenvalue buckling analysis is adopted to determine the buckling response with the temperature change of the structure.