A study on buckling of simply supported plates with edges partially restrained for in-plane movement

This paper investigated experimentally the influence of size and location of a circular cut-out on the buckling load of simply supported plates with in-plane boundary conditions (and thus, induced stress pattern in the pre-buckling state). Experiments were conducted on solid and perforated stainless steel plates with different aspect ratios and edges partially restrained for in-plane movements. Results of these experiments demonstrated that the size and position of cut-out significantly affected the buckling load of the plate specimens. Further, to better interpret the experimentally obtained results, finite element analyses were conducted wherein the numerical model closely represented the experimental setup. The Riks method of analysis and eigenvalue elastic buckling analysis were carried out with the same set of experimental boundary conditions. From these analysis, it was found that the in-plane restraints significantly affected the buckling behavior of a plate. It was also observed that the buckling loads obtained from experiments matched reasonably well with the analytical values.