Rayleigh-Ritz analysis for localized buckling of a strut on a softening foundation by Hermite functions (Q1434692)

This paper presents a Rayleigh-Ritz procedure for localized buckling of a strut on a nonlinear elastic foundation. The deflected shape of a strut is expanded as a series in orthogonal Hermite functions. The recursion formulae for orthogonal Hermite functions and their derivatives are derived. The errors of the numerical integration of Hermite functions in an infinite region have been investigated, and a reasonable integral limit has been suggested. The authors show that the proposed method is efficient and has a good convergence.