CUFSM

CU-FSM is a program designed to give the elastic buckling stresses (loads) for any simply supported thin-walled member subjected to arbitrary stress conditions at its ends.

Once a cross-section is properly defined, the program proceeds by examining a variety of different lengths for the section. The stress and the shape at which buckling ensues is recorded for each of the lengths. The resulting "buckling curve" and "mode shape" may be used to better understand the behavior of the section under consideration.

Since the solution is numerical in nature the geometry of the cross-section may be quite complicated without greatly increasing the demand on the user. Compared to hand methods the solution is much more direct. In addition, since full cross-sections may be modeled, interaction between elements is readily captured. Use of such a numerical technique hopefully frees the engineer to consider more innovative cross-sections without greatly complicating the tasks for the engineer.

	The Main Screen This is what comes up when the user starts CU-FSM from within Matlab. The buttons allow you to interact with the various modules that make CU-FSM work.
	The General Pre-Processor The general pre-processor allows the user to enter in the cross-section that they wish to analyze as well as the material properties and arbitrary stress distributions. In the general pre-processor the user has full control over the boundary conditions and all the orthotropic material properties. The general pre-processor also automatically provides a way to increase the discretization of your member. A simple pre-processor (with much less input required) is also available. The simple pre-processor only works for non-branching, isotropic members.
	The Section Properties The section properties module allows you to see the basic section properties for a member you have inputted, allows you to calculate the yield loads and moments, and also allows you to generate stress distributions consistent with a load or a moment. (This is often simpler than generating the stress distribution node by node.)
	Post-Processor (Local Buckling Shown) The post-processor is the heart and soul of the program. Here one can see the buckling mode shapes in 2D or 3D. In addition, the buckling curve can also be generated. Local buckling of a channel section, in flexure is shown here.
	Post-Processor (Distortional Buckling Shown) One of the adavantages of finite strip analysis is the ability to see all the possible buckling modes in an efficinet analysis. Here, distortional buckling for a channel section is shown. Accurate hand methods for predicting this mode can be quite laborious. For the finite strip analysis the result is quitre straightforward.