Local Buckling Analysis of Restrained Orthotropic Plates under Generic In-Plane Loading: Fid-Bau Portal

Local Buckling Analysis of Restrained Orthotropic Plates under Generic In-Plane Loading

Qiao, Pizhong / Chen, Fangliang / Xu, Jifeng / Lu, Zizi

Abstract

An analytical study of local buckling of discrete laminated plates or panels of fiber-reinforced plastic structural shapes is presented. Two cases of composite plate analyses with two opposite edges simply supported and the other two opposite edges either both rotationally restrained or one rotationally restrained and the other free, are studied. Generic loading cases with combined linearly varying axial and in-plane shear loading are considered. A variational formulation of the Ritz method is used to establish the eigenvalue problem for the local buckling behavior, and explicit expressions for predictions of the plate buckling stress resultants, in terms of the rotationally restrained stiffness, the plate aspect ratio, and the ratios of applied stress resultants, are developed. Based on different boundary and loading conditions, simple and explicit local buckling solutions for several special cases are further reduced. Validity of the explicit solutions presented is demonstrated by a good agreement of comparisons between the present predictions and available solutions in the literature. Parametric studies are further conducted, and the influences of several parameters such as the rotationally restrained stiffness, biaxial loading stress ratio, material flexural orthotropy, and linearly varying axial loading stress gradient on the local buckling stress resultants are discussed.