Review article

New functions are proposed to describe the deformed state of rods upon loss of stability for two types of rods with different boundary conditions. To solve stability problems with a kinematic uncertainty number of more than two, it is recommended to reduce solution to a characteristic equation with the further use of computer programs with matrix operations. For this purpose, a stiffness matrix and potential loading matrix were developed for the adopted functions. Following the example of classical displacement method for the mentioned rods, there was developed a table of reactions for single displacements. Several examples are given that illustrate fairly close results to the exact solutions.