STABILITY ANALYSIS OF A THICK PLATE WITH INTERIOR CUTOUT

Plates with interior cutout are often used in industrial design such as machines, bridges, aircraft, etc. Many advantages, such as reduced weights, easy access for maintenance, and easier assembling process, can be obtained by the design. However, when interior holds were cut from plate structures, mechanical behaviors of the structures were changed. To avoid structure instability, buckling behavior of such plate structures must be studied. The current research studies the buckling behavior of Mindlin-thick plates with interior cutout for different boundaries and different opening ratios. An incremental deformation concept is adapted and the curvature effect is considered. The quadratic element of the eight node is used. Selective-reduced integration is used to find integration of the stiffness matrix. Eigenvalues and eigenvectors are calculated by the subspace iteration method. The validity of the calculations are checked out against existing solutions for full-plate buckling. It is shown that opening ratios have different effects on buckling for different boundary conditions. © 1990 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., All rights reserved.