2. Presentation of bar instabilities

The general principles of structural instabilities have been described in a first dossier. . As far as possible, the presentation remained at the level of basic concepts, and a specific instability phenomenon was used only to illustrate the subject matter.

The present dossier deals with instabilities specific to bars, i.e. elongated structural elements whose length is large in relation to the dimensions of the cross-section. Other dossiers will deal with instabilities specific to plates and shells, structural elements whose two dimensions are large in relation to the third, i.e. thickness.