Buckling of Columns with Overhang

This paper extends the recent work of Ari‐Gur and Elishakoff on shear‐flexural buckling of columns with overhang to include the effect of axial shortening. The combined effects of axial and shear deformations on buckling of columns have been investigated by Ziegler and more recently by Wang et al. Their governing equations and results defer slightly due to different assumptions made on the constitutive relation for the shearing force. Closed‐form analytical buckling solutions for columns with overhang, derived from both formulations, are presented. These new results are compared to those obtained by Ari‐Gur and Elishakoff so as to determine the importance of axial deformation effect on such buckling problems. It was found that the inclusion of axial shortening increases the critical loads by, at most, several percent for colunns with short overhang. For columns with long overhang, the effect of axial shortening is almost negligible and thus can be overlooked.