Explicit Solutions for Plate Buckling Analysis

Abstract

Solutions are presented for the analysis of the nonlinear buckling behavior of initially deformed plates subject to in-plane compressive and shear loading. It is shown that perturbation techniques can be used in conjunction with computer-oriented numerical methods to produce simple explicit polynomial series solutions for displacements and forces. The numerical method used is a finite difference approximation to the nonlinear equilibrium equations together with dynamic relaxation. Examples are given which illustrate the potential of the expressions for design of initially deformed thin-walled structural components.