TABLE OF CONTENTS VABS (Variational Asymptotic Beam Sectional Analysis) is a computer program implementing the theories of Chapter 4 using the finite element method. Because most of the theoretical details are presented there, the tutorial in this appendix will only serve to help readers to get started using VABS to solve their own composite beam problems. The tutorial addresses the history of the computer code, its features, functionalities, conventions, input, and output.
The research project that gave birth to VABS was initiated by the author of this text when he was first introduced to the variational asymptotic method by Professor Berdichevsky at Georgia Tech in 1989 and has been ongoing ever since till the time of writing. The program name VABS first appeared in Hodges et al. (1992). The original version of VABS was a research code written in Fortran 77 by Professor Cesnik. Although the current version is a completely rewritten code, it is important to note that the original version laid an able foundation for the present code and facilitated its development. The fall semester of 1998, when the author of this tutorial began his graduate study at Georgia Tech, marked the beginning of the transition of VABS from a research code to a production analysis tool for practicing engineers. The code was rewritten from scratch in Fortran 90/95, with all unnecessary restrictions eliminated, and the computing and memory efficiency greatly enhanced. At the same time, Professor Cesnik was continuing his work on VABS for piezoelectric materials at...
