Compressive buckling analysis of plates in unilateral contact

The unilateral contact buckling behaviour of delaminated plates in a composite member is studied in this paper, where the two-dimensional mechanical problem is simplified to a one-dimensional mathematical model following the assumption of a buckling mode function in terms of the lateral coordinates. After the governing differential equations for the plate parts in the contact and non-contact regions have been solved, the problem is reduced to just two nonlinear algebraic equations allowing the buckling coefficient to be obtained through an iteration method. A simplified method is also deduced based on an assumed zero length of contact. The numerical results of the buckling coefficients based on both methods show good agreement.