Buckling Strength of Plywood, Results of Tests and Design Recommendations

Tests were carried out on 100 specimens of Canadian Douglas fir plywood to verify that reasonably good agreement exists between the buckling theories and the actual behaviour of plywood. From load-deflection curves values for a critical buckling strength can be determined, which are in good agreement with theoretical values in the case of simply-supported edges. A clamped boundary condition could not be realised in such a way that the theoretical values were approximated. For' design purposes this condition should not be presumed. Attention has been paid to combinations of normal and shear stresses on the basis of theoretical considerations. This leads to proposals for the scope of design recommendations, which have not been worked out in detail here.