PROGRAMA PARA ANÁLISE GEOMETRICAMENTE NÃO LINEAR DE PÓRTICOS POR MEIO DE UM CONTROLE EXTENSIVO DO USUÁRIO

Resumo

This work presents the development and use of a graphical tool to analyze two-dimensional
framed models considering geometric nonlinearity. The goal is to provide an application that allows
users to have full control of the numerical procedures for solving the nonlinear problem and, therefore,
to improve their understanding about the nonlinear behavior of structures. This application was
implemented as a new feature of the Ftool (Two-dimensional Frame Analysis Tool) program, which
has demonstrated to be a valuable program for teaching structural engineering over the last years. A
user-friendly interface was designed so that several analysis options, including the most well-known
solution algorithms, and the numerical parameters used in these algorithms, are available to be set. All
of these options and parameters can be changed as the analysis progresses, and it is also possible to go
back and forward in the analysis steps. Since no algorithm is able to solve all the nonlinear problems,
as shown in an example of this work, this extensive analysis control allows a greater possibility to
obtain the convergence along the full path of any geometrically nonlinear analysis. The equilibrium
path of the structures can be plotted in an exclusive environment that provides several distinct data to
be shown in each axis.