Buckling

A Structural Member in Compression (i.e. a Strut) is more likely to buckle first when subjected to pressure - assuming the Strut is made of a sensible material and not something so brittle it is likely to explode under pressure(!)

The point at which a strut might buckle can be assessed using a simplified form of Euler's Buckling Equation as follows:

Where:

• Pcrit = the Critical Force at which the strut will start to buckle.
• E = the Young's Modulus of the material (obtainable from tables or by experiment).
• Capital I = the Moment of Inertia about the Neutral Axis (for a rectangular beam this is its breadth times the depth cubed divided by 12).
• L = the length of the Strut (this is taken as the total length if the strut is assumed to be pin-jointed at each end but would vary with other fixing methods - see Euler's Buckling Equation)