Initial tension in randomly disordered periodic lattices

This paper is concerned with probabilistic analysis of initial member stress in geometrically imperfect regular lattice structures with periodic boundary conditions. Spatial invariance of the corresponding statistical parameters is shown to arise on the Born-von Karman domains. This allows analytical treatment of the problem, where the parameters of stress distribution are obtained in a closed form. Several benchmark problems with beam- and plate-like lattices are considered, and the results are verified by the direct Monte-Carlo simulations. Behaviour of the standard deviation as a function of lattice repetitive cell number is investigated, and dependence on the lattice structural redundancy is pointed out. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.