A generalized analytical approach to the buckling of simply-supported rectangular plates under arbitrary loads

An analytical approach for the elastic stability of simply-supported rectangular plates under arbitrary external loads is presented which, for the first time, may be described as ‘exact’. This is achieved through the use of exact solutions for the in-plane stresses and the adoption of double Fourier series for the buckled profiles which, together, ensure that accurate results are obtained in the Ritz energy technique. Several cases of plate buckling under direct, shear and bending loads (or their combinations) are studied to show the generality of the proposed approach, with the ensuing results compared with existing data (if available) and with numerical FE results.