Buckling and post-buckling behaviour of rectangular plates under linearly varying compression and shear: part 1 — Theoretical analysis

Abstract The buckling and post-buckling behaviour of thin, rectangular, simply supported flat plates subjected to end compression which varies linearly in the direction of loading and simultaneously loaded in shear is the subject of this paper. Part 1 presents a theoretical analysis of the problem. In this analysis the Rayleigh-Ritz energy method is utilised, and numerical minimisation of the total potential energy is applied to obtain the magnitude of the parameters of the assumed deflection functions. These are then used to define and describe other post-buckling characteristics of the plate. A simplified imperfection analysis is used to examine certain cases. The wide range of results presented covers many aspects of plate post-buckling behaviour.