An investigation on the elastic stability of thin plates

In the present work the finite element method is used to solve the elastic stability problem of pointly supported thin plates for different cases of inplane loadings. Rectangular plates discussed, are subjected to the following in plane loads. Plates compressed in one direction only Plates compressed in two directions with Ny = Nx Plates compressed in two directions with Ny = O.SNx Plates subjected to shear edge forces. The compressed plates with different cases of point support are investigated. A computer program is prepared to solve the problem of elastic stability of thin plates . The program is written in ”BASIC” which is common in most personal computer devices. In chapter ”1” areview of the previous work is presented. This chapter <deals with many cases of plate stability. The different methods of solution for plate buckling problems are discussed in Chapter ”2” Chapter ”3” deals with the finite element analysis which used in this thesis. Chapter ”4” gives the results obtained for the plate stability problems investigated in this thesis. The present work gives the shape of configuration of the buckled plate as well as the critical buckling load. For each problem relation gives the critical load with respect to the ratio of rectangularity is shown. These relations are important to the designer of such structures where thin plate elements are subjected to inplane compressi ve forces.