Alloys with shape memory (SMA) are characterized by the properties of shape memory and superelasticity. Both are accompanied by a phase transformation in the material, during which a latent heat is absorbed or released, known as the elastocaloric effect. Therefore, such materials are used for the production of cooling/heating systems that exploit this effect. In such devices, thin-walled tubes are most commonly used due to their good heat transfer properties. However, they are sensitive to buckling under compression. When considering buckling, we have to deal with geometric nonlinear effects in addition to material nonlinearities due to SMA. Addressing such cases is possible with shell finite elements (FE). However, due to the need for a large number of FE and their numerous parameters, the problem is computationaly very intensive and time-consuming. The aim of this work is to develop a computational model for predicting buckling of thin-walled tubes using corotational beam FE. This approach enables significantly faster prototyping and preliminary development of systems where buckling issues arise. In this master's thesis, the development of such FE is demonstrated, and a comparison is made with experimental measurements obtained from the literature and measurements conducted by ourselves. It is shown that for many practical cases, the approach with support FE is appropriate and efficient, despite these FE not being able to describe localized deformation, unlike shell FE.
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