Flexural-torsional buckling can be described as a combination of bending and twisting response

of a member in compression. Such a deflection mode must be considered for design purposes.
This mostly occurs in columns with "open" cross-sections and hence have a low torsional
stiffness, such as channels, structural tees, double-angle shapes, and equal-leg single angles.
Circular cross sections do not experience such a mode of bucking.

When a simply supported beam is loaded in flexure, the top side is in compression, and the
bottom side is in tension. If the beam is not supported in the lateral direction (i.e., perpendicular
to the plane of bending), and the flexural load increases to a critical limit, the beam will
experience a lateral deflection of the compression flange. The lateral deflection of the
compression flange is restrained by the beam web and tension flange, but for an open section the
twisting mode is more flexible, hence the beam both twists and deflects laterally in a failure
mode known as lateral-torsional buckling. In wide-flange sections (with high lateral bending
stiffness), the deflection mode will be mostly twisting in torsion. In narrow-flange sections, the
bending stiffness is lower and the column's deflection will be closer to that of lateral bucking
deflection mode.

The buckling strength of a member is less than the elastic buckling strength of a structure if the
material of the member is stressed beyond the elastic material range and into the non-linear
(plastic) material behavior range. When the compression load is near the buckling load, the
structure will bend significantly and the material of the column will diverge from a linear stress-
strain behavior. The stress-strain behavior of materials is not strictly linear even below the yield
point, hence the modulus of elasticity decreases as stress increases, and significantly so as the
stresses approach the material's yield strength. This reduced material rigidity reduces the
buckling strength of the structure and results in a bucking load less than that predicted by the
assumption of linear elastic behavior.

If a column is loaded suddenly and then the load released, the column can sustain a much higher
load than its static (slowly applied) buckling load. This can happen in a long, unsupported
column used as a drop hammer. The duration of compression at the impact end is the time
required for a stress wave to travel along the column to the other (free) end and back down as a
relief wave. Maximum buckling occurs near the impact end at a wavelength much shorter than
the length of the rod, and at a stress many times the buckling stress of a statically-loaded column.
The critical condition for buckling amplitude to remain less than about 25 times the effective rod
straightness imperfection at the buckle wavelength is

where is the impact stress, is the length of the rod, is the elastic wave speed,

and is the smaller lateral dimension of a rectangular rod. Because the buckle wavelength

depends only on and , this same formula holds for thin cylindrical shells of thickness

.[12]