Generalized beam theory for the analysis of thin-walled structures — A state-of-the-art survey

Thin-walled prismatic metallic members as well as structures made of laminated composite materials are routinely employed in engineering branches such as civil engineering or lightweight construction and design. Due to their thin-walled nature, such structures exhibit a number of specific characteristics that need to be taken into account during analysis and design. One of these special features is the tendency to exhibit an interaction of local, global and distortional deformation patterns which has a major impact on the structural response in the framework of first-order analysis, but also concerning the buckling, postbuckling and vibration behavior of such structures. One analysis method that takes such effects into account in a natural and straightforward way is the so-called Generalized Beam Theory (GBT), and this paper aims at providing an overview of the state of the art in this specific field. In all, 460 references are cited.