Bifurcations and Stability Analysis of Elastic Slender Structures Using Static Discrete Elastic Rods Method

Abstract Discrete elastic rods (DER) method provides a computationally efficient means of simulating the nonlinear dynamics of one-dimensional slender structures. However, this dynamic-based framework can only provide first-order stable equilibrium configuration when combined with the dynamic relaxation method, while the unstable equilibria and potential critical points (i.e., bifurcation and fold point) cannot be obtained, which are important for understanding the bifurcation and stability landscape of slender bodies. Our approach modifies the existing DER technique from dynamic simulation to a static framework and computes eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the tangential stiffness matrix after each load incremental step for bifurcation and stability analysis. This treatment can capture both stable and unstable equilibrium modes, critical points, and trace solution curves. Three representative types of structures—beams, strips, and gridshells—are used as demonstrations to show the effectiveness of the modified numerical framework, which provides a robust tool for unveiling the bifurcation and multistable behaviors of slender structures.