This video shows the buckling failure of a pin-ended, steel column of intermediate slenderness under an axial compression load.

Learning Outcomes:

Viewers will gain an improved understanding of:

• Column buckling
• Geometric effects vs material effects
• Column buckling lengths and shapes
• Influence of end restraint on buckling behaviour in columns

Initially the column behaves elastically until the column starts to displace sideways (or buckle). The video demonstrates how the strength of the column rapidly decreases once buckling instability has occurred.

Structures expert, Doctor Ahmer Wadee of Imperial College, London narrates this video. Doctor Wadee is Reader in Nonlinear Mechanics in the Structures Section at Imperial College’s Department of Civil Engineering.

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