Counterintuitive Behavior in a Problem of Elastic-Plastic Beam Dynamics

In a particular example of short pulse loading on a pin-ended beam, the permanent deflection is predicted by a numerical solution to be in the direction opposite that of the load. Analysis of a Shanley-type model shows that this surprising behavior may occur as a consequence of plastic irreversibility combined with geometric nonlinearity, when the peak deflection produced by the pulse lies in a certain range of small magnitudes. Results from a number of well-known structural dynamics codes are shown. These exhibit a wide spread in the predicted final deflections, indicating strong sensitivities of both physical and computational nature.