Stability of a rectangular plate axially compressed on its two opposite free edges

Abstract

The stability of a rectangular plate under two different compressive loading scenarios applied to the free edges of the plate has been investigated. It is assumed that under the applied load the edges have translational and rotational degrees of freedom. In the first case, a conservative external force, that is assumed to have a fixed direction with respect to the deforming body, is applied while in the second case the load is directed to be tangential to the deflected middle surface, the follower force. It is found that for a sufficiently narrow plate the buckling is localized in the neighborhood of free edges as the conservative load is applied. A similar phenomenon is known for the case when a plate is uniformly compressed along hinged edges. In the case of a follower force, the static formulation of the problem leads to the conclusion that localized buckling does not exist. However, depending on the parameters of the problem, the usual (global) buckling is predicted.