BUCKLING SOLUTIONS FOR MINDLIN PLATES OF VARIOUS SHAPES

In the open literature, there are many formulae, tables and design charts for use in estimating the buckling loads of thin plates. However, buckling solutions for thick plates, apart from those belonging to rectangular and axisymmetric plate shapes, are rather scarce. Prompted by the lack of results, this paper presents generic buckling solutions for isotropic inplane loaded Mindlin prates of regular polygonal, elliptical, semicircular and annular plates. These numerical solutions should help designers to save time rather than having to analyse the stability of moderately thick plates.