Buckling of a uniformly compressed rectangular SSCF composite sandwich plate

Solution of the buckling problem for a uniformly compressed rectangular composite sandwich plate having two parallel edges simply supported, one edge clamped and the remaining edge free (the SSCF sandwich plate) is presented in the paper. A variational buckling equation is derived based on the Lagrange principle and first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT). The Kantorovich procedure is applied to reduce the original equation to a one-dimensional form. Subsequent application of the generalised Galerkin method leads to an analytical formula for the critical load which is verified by using finite-element analysis. Efficiency of the analytical formula derived is demonstrated for design cases in which constraints are imposed on the value of critical load.