Experimental critical loads for perforated square plates

Experimentally determined critical loads are presented for simply supported square plates with a circular central hole under the action of uniform edge displacements for hole diameters varying up to seventenths the dimension of the plate. The critical load is defined as the inflection point on the load-deflection curve as measured by a set of dial gages at the edge of the hole. Least-squares-curve fitting techniques are used for reducing all experimental data and the entire set of computations is carried out on the electronic digital computer. Finally, it is shown that the experimental results agree well with the theoretical critical loads as determined by the Ritz energy method.