Stability of plates with step variation in thickness

Abstract The analytical strip method (ASM), which was recently developed for the bending problem of plates, is extended in this study to the buckling problem of rectangular plates. In this method, the plate is idealized as a system of plate strips and the system's behavior is derived by imposing the edge and continuity conditions on the closed-form solution of the individual plate strips. The advantage of this method lies in its versatility and its capability of dealing with plates which are partially compressed or have a step variation in their thickness. Results are presented for plates with various end conditions and for different step functions for the thickness.