Post-buckling stability of orthotropic, linear elastic, rectangular plates under biaxial loads (Q1082879)

The potential energy function in a neighborhood of the buckling point for a biaxially loaded, linear elastic, orthotropic, simply supported, rectangular plate is obtained from a perturbation analysis. The perfect system has two independent bifurcation parameters, the loads. The post- buckling behavior is stable, and a good estimate is found for the post- buckling deflection of the plate in terms of the loads. The orthotropic constitutive equations interacts with the biaxial loading to cause a bimodal buckling point for certain combinations of loads; this point is also stable. Away from the bimodal point, the equilibrium surface is described as a cusp cylinder. At the bimodal point, the equilibrium surface is a double cusp.