Unsymmetric equilibrium states of inhomogeneous circular plates under normal pressure

This work is concerned with the numerical study of unsymmetrical buckling of clamped orthotropic plates under uniformpressure. The effect of material heterogeneity on the buckling load is examined. The refined 2D shell theory is employed to obtain the governing equations for buckling of a clamped circular shell. The unsymmetric part of the solution is sought in terms of multiples of the harmonics of the angular coordinate. A numerical method is employed to obtain the lowest load value, which leads to the appearance of waves in the circumferential direction. It is shown that if the elasticity modulus decreases away from the center of a plate, the critical pressure for unsymmetric buckling is sufficiently lower than for a plate with constant mechanical properties.