DEPARTMENT OF AERONAUTICAL & AEROSPACE ENGINEERING
AE3501 AIRCRAFT STRUCTURES - II
UNIT-3 BUCKLING OF PLATES
Syllabus For UNIT-3 BUCKLING OF PLATE- Behavior of a rectangular plate under
compression, governing equation for plate buckling, buckling analysis of sheets and stiffened
panel under compression, concept of the effective sheet width, buckling due to shear and
combined loading, crippling.
1.1 BUCKLING OF THIN PLATES
A thin plate may buckle in a variety of modes, depending upon its dimensions, the loading, and
the method of support. Usually, however, buckling loads are much lower than those likely to cause
failure in the material of the plate. The simplest form of buckling arises when compressive loads
are applied to simply supported opposite edges and the unloaded edges are free, as shown in Fig.
infinite double trigonometrical series
1
total potential energy of the plate = U+V
, the total strain energy U
the potential energy
The total potential energy of the plate has a stationary value in the neutral equilibrium of
its buckled state (i.e., Nx= Nx,CR). Therefore, differentiating Eq.
nontrivial solution,
The above eqn, that each term in the infinite series for displacement corresponds, as in the case of
a column, to a different value of critical load (note, the problem is an eigenvalue problem). The
lowest value of critical load evolves from some critical combination of integers m and n, that is,
the number of half-waves in the x and y directions, and the plate dimensions. Clearly n ¼ 1 gives
a minimum value, so that no matter what the values of m, a, and b, the plate buckles into a half
sine wave in the y direction. Thus, we may write
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where the plate buckling coefficient k is given by the minimum value of
for a given value of a/b. To determine the minimum value of k for a given value of a/b, we plot k
as a function of a/b for different values of m, as shown by the dotted curves in Fig
It can be seen that m varies with the ratio a/b and that k and the buckling load are a minimum
when k = 4 at values of a/b = 1, 2, 3, . . . . As a/b becomes large, k approaches 4, so that long
narrow plates tend to buckle into a series of squares as shown in Fig
3
The transition from one buckling mode to the next may be found by equating values of k for the
m and m+ 1 curves. Hence,
In general, the critical stress for a uniform rectangular plate, with various edge supports and loaded
by constant or linearly varying in-plane direct forces (Nx, Ny) or constant shear forces (Nxy) along
its edges, is given by Eq.
The value of k remains a function of a/b but depends also upon the type of loading and edge
support. Solutions for such problems have been obtained by solving the appropriate differential
equation or by using the approximate (Rayleigh–Ritz) energy method. Values of k for a variety of
loading and support conditions are shown in Fig
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(a) Buckling Coefficients for Flat Plates in Compression; (b) Buckling Coefficients for Flat
Plates in Bending; (c) Shear Buckling Coefficients for Flat Plates
Differentiate between buckling and crippling
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Buckling and crippling are two failure modes that occur in structural components, especially
in thin-walled members like columns, beams, or panels. Though they are related to
instability, they have distinct characteristics:
1. Buckling:
• Definition: Buckling refers to the sudden lateral or torsional deformation of a structural
component under compressive load. When the load exceeds a critical value, the
component deforms laterally rather than continuing to compress in a straight line.
• Nature: It is a global instability phenomenon, meaning the entire structure or a significant
portion of it deforms.
• Causes: Primarily caused by compressive forces that exceed a critical load. Buckling is a
function of the component’s length, cross-sectional shape, and material properties.
• Example: A long, slender column bends or deflects sideways under axial compressive
loading once a critical load is reached.
• Governing Factors: Euler's Buckling Formula governs the critical buckling load for long,
slender columns:
2. Crippling:
• Definition: Crippling refers to local failure or deformation in a structural element, usually
in the form of localized buckling. It occurs when small sections of a member, such as the
flanges or web of thin-walled components, fail or deform under load.
• Nature: It is a local instability phenomenon, often confined to one portion or a smaller
area of the structure.
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• Causes: Typically occurs in thin-walled sections subjected to compressive stress. Unlike
buckling, which involves the entire component, crippling is more about localized failure.
• Example: The flanges of a thin-walled beam buckle locally when subjected to a
compressive load, leading to failure.
• Governing Factors: The design and strength of thin-walled structures under crippling
conditions are often based on empirical formulas and depend heavily on the geometry
and material properties.
Difference Between Primary Buckling and Secondary Buckling
Primary and secondary buckling refer to different stages and types of instability that occur in
structural elements under compressive or shear loads. Both are significant in structural
analysis, particularly in thin-walled structures, plates, and stiffened panels.
1. Primary Buckling:
Primary buckling is the initial form of buckling that occurs when a structure or component
reaches its critical load. This is the point where the structure undergoes a sudden change in
its deformation pattern, leading to a new equilibrium configuration.
• Critical Load: Primary buckling occurs at the critical buckling load, which is the lowest
load at which the structure loses stability.
• Mode of Buckling: It often involves large, global deformations, such as overall buckling
of a column, plate, or stiffened panel. This deformation is typically uniform and
symmetric, and it corresponds to the lowest eigenvalue in buckling analysis.
• Elastic Buckling: Primary buckling is usually an elastic phenomenon, meaning the
structure remains within the elastic range of material behavior. Once the load exceeds the
critical value, the structure buckles but can still support the load without material failure.
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• Examples:
o A long slender column under axial compression that experiences Euler buckling.
o A flat plate between stiffeners that buckles as a whole when compressive stress
reaches the critical level.
Key Characteristics of Primary Buckling:
• First occurrence of buckling at the critical load.
• Global deformation of the structure.
• Usually elastic and reversible if the load is removed.
2. Secondary Buckling:
Secondary buckling, also known as post-buckling or local buckling, occurs after primary
buckling has already taken place and the structure is loaded further. This typically involves
local deformation modes within the already buckled configuration.
• Mode of Buckling: Secondary buckling involves localized deformation of the structure,
often in regions that are no longer effective in carrying load due to prior primary
buckling. For example, skin panels between stiffeners may undergo local wrinkling or rib
buckling after the overall panel has buckled.
• Post-Buckling Behavior: In secondary buckling, the structure enters a non-linear regime,
with complex stress redistributions. The load may still increase, but additional parts of
the structure will buckle in localized regions.
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• Secondary Instabilities: These instabilities may involve the formation of multiple
buckling waves or progressive local failures. Secondary buckling is often characterized
by more complex, asymmetric modes compared to primary buckling.
• Material Yielding: Secondary buckling is often associated with the onset of material
yielding or local collapse, as local strains become large enough to exceed the elastic limit.
• Examples:
o A stiffened panel where the flat plate between stiffeners buckles first (primary
buckling), followed by the stiffeners themselves buckling under further load
(secondary buckling).
o A thin-walled cylindrical shell that undergoes global buckling followed by
localized buckling (wrinkling) of the surface.
Key Characteristics of Secondary Buckling:
• Occurs after the structure has already buckled (post-primary buckling).
• Involves localized deformations in specific regions.
• May involve material yielding and progressive collapse
BUCKLING STRESS IN COMPRESSION AND SHEAR
BUCKLING MODES OF A PLATE IN COMPRESSION
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BUCKLING MODES OF A PLATE IN SHEAR
A long rectangular plate subjected to pure shear produces internal compressive stress on the
plate 45o with the plate edges and thus these compressive stresses causes the long panel to
buckle in patterns at an angle to the plate edges as shown in fig.
The buckled patterns have a half wave length of 1.25b. The shear buckling stress of the
rectangular plate under elastic load condition is given by
τcr=(Ksπ2E/12(1-γ2)) *(t/b)2
where Ks= Shear Buckling coeff (5-6)
b = Short dimension of plate
γ =poisson ratio
If the buckling occurs at stress level above the elastic stress then plasticity correction must be
included and buckling stress equation under plastic condition is given by
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τcr= ηs(Ksπ2E/12(1-γ2)) *(t/b)2
where ηs =plasticity shear correction factor =Gs/G
Method to calculate crippling strength
NEEDHAM’S METHOD OR ANGLE METHOD
In Needham method, the structural member section is divided into angle elements as shown in
figure. The crippling strength of these elements can be established by theory and/or tests. The
crippling failure strength of the member section then can be determined by summing the
crippling strength of each angle element that makes up the total section. Through extensive tests
Needham arrived at the following semi empirical equation for the crippling stress of angle
sections:
Fcs = crippling stress for section
Fcy = compressive yield stress
t = element thickness
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E = young’s modulus of elasticity
bI/t =equivalent b/t of section = (a+b)/2t
Ce =coefficient of edge support along the edges of contiguous angle units.
= 0.316 (two edges free)
=0.342 (one edge free)
=0.366 (no edge free)
The crippling stress for angles, channels, zees and rectangular tubes can be determined directly
from use
of equation 1.
The crippling load on an angle unit is then Pcs = Fcs.A
where A is the area of the angle.
The crippling stress of other formed shapes can be determined by
i) Dividing the shape into a number of angle units and
ii) Computing the crippling loads for these individual angle units by the above equations.
The weighted crippling stress for the entire section is obtained from the following equation:
GERARD’S METHOD:
Gerard’s method for calculating crippling stresses is a generalization of Needham’s method.
This method involves three semi empirical equations for determining the crippling stresses in
various shapes of structural members.
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Fcs = crippling stress for section
Fcy = compressive yield stress
t = element thickness
A = section area
E = young’s modulus of elasticity
g = no. of flanges which compose the composite section, plus the number of cuts necessary to
divide the section into a series of flanges.
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INELASTIC BUCKLING, POST-BUCKLING, AND STRENGTH OF
FLAT PLATES
The elastic critical plate buckling stresses, or corresponding plate buckling coefficients (k’s),
provided in the previous section represent an important benchmark for understanding the behavior
of thin plates. However, such elastic critical buckling stresses do not directly indicate the actual
behavior that may occur in such a thin plate. In thin plates loaded to failure material and geometric
effects complicate the response.
It is common, though artificial, to use the elastic critical buckling stress as a benchmark for
delineating different forms of plate buckling: if material yielding occurs prior to the elastic critical
buckling stress this is known as inelastic buckling; strength at magnitudes greater than the elastic
critical buckling stress, and the associated deformations that occur under such loading, are referred
to as post-buckling and may be either elastic or inelastic. Finally, ultimate strength refers to the
maximum load the plate may carry, typically independent of deformation, which may indeed be
quite large.
Actual plate response under load is more complicated than the simple notions of inelastic
buckling and post-buckling, this is due in part to unavoidable imperfections. In an imperfect
plate out-of-plane deformations begin immediately upon loading, such deformations lead to
second order (geometrically nonlinear) forces (and strains) that must be accounted for throughout
the loading/deformation, and thus the notions of buckling and post-buckling are not definitively
distinct. Under load the stress field response of a thin plate is complicated and varies along the
length, across the width, and through the thickness of the plate. Residual stresses that may exist
in the plate further complicate the response. A plate with an applied stress well below the elastic
critical plate buckling stress may still have portions of the plate yielding; thus determining a
definitive regime where a plate enters inelastic buckling is difficult. For gradual yielding metals
(e.g., aluminum, stainless steel) the distinction between elastic and inelastic buckling becomes
even more difficult.
Currently, inelastic buckling, post-buckling, and the strength of thin plates (and plate
assemblages such as Fig. 4.1) are most robustly examined through the use of numerical methods
such as finite element analysis. Finite element models for stability critical structures are
discussed further in Chapter 21, but key considerations for plates include: the manner in which
shear in the plate is handled (namely Kirchoff vs. Mindlin plate theory), the material stress-strain
relation including residual stresses and strains, the yield criterion (von Mises is by far the most
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common in metals), the hardening law (isotropic hardening is the most common for static
loading, but is inadequate if large strain reversals are present), magnitude and distribution of
geometric imperfections, inclusion of higher-order strain terms in the development of the plate
stiffness, enforcement of equilibrium on the deformed geometry, details of the boundary
conditions, and for finite elements the order of the elements and the discretization of the plate
both in terms of element density and element aspect ratio. Finite element analysis is not the only
method able to provide post-buckling and collapse analysis of plates, finite strip (Bradford and
Azhari 1995; Kwon and Hancock 1991; Lau and Hancock 1986; Lau and Hancock 1989), and
recently generalized beam theory (Goncalves and Camotim 2007; Silvestre and Camotim 2002)
have proven to be able to provide reliable solutions.
For typical design, fully nonlinear numerical collapse analysis of thin plates remains too involved
of a task; in this situation one turns to classical and semi-empirical approaches. These design
approximations are the focus of this section. In particular, the effective width method, has wide
use as an approximate technique for determining ultimate strength of plates that accounts for
inelastic buckling and post-buckling and is discussed in detail.
Inelastic buckling
The notion of “inelastic buckling” is an attempt to extend the elastic critical buckling
approximations of Section 4.2 to situations where material yielding has already occurred. Bleich
(1952) generalized the expression for the critical stress of a flat plate under uniform compressive
stress in either the elastic or inelastic range in the following manner:
in which η = Et/E. This modification of Eq. to adapt it to a stress higher than the proportional limit
is a conservative approximation to the solution of a complex problem that involves a continuous
updating of the constitutive relations depending on the axial stress carried (Stowell, 1948; Bijlaard,
1949, 1950).
In combined loading the work of Stowell (1949) and Peters (1954) suggest that the inelastic
buckling interaction is not the same as the elastic buckling interaction. Under combined
compressive and shear stress for loads applied in constant ratio Peters found that a circular stress-
ratio interaction formula as expressed by Eq. was conservative and agreed better with test results
than Eq. 4.7 which was provided for elastic buckling interaction.
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Effective Width
To calculate the load carrying capacity of the plate in the post-buckling range, the concept of
effective width is used. The concept was first proposed by von Karman. He realized that as the
plate is loaded beyond its elastic buckling load, the central part such as strip AB deflects thereby
shedding the load to the edge strips. Therefore, the nonuniform stress distribution across the width
of the buckled plate, can be replaced by a uniform stress blocks of stress equal to that at the edges,
over a width of beff/2 on either side where beff is called the effective width of the plate. This
effective width can be calculated by equating the non-uniform stress blocks and the uniform stress
blocks.
The shape of the non-uniform stress block depends on the load and support conditions. Therefore
a number of formulae are available for calculating the effective width, each catering to a particular
geometry of the plate. For the plate simply supported on all four sides, as the load is increased
beyond the critical buckling load, the stress block becomes more and more non-uniform. When
the stress at the outer strips reaches the yield stress, the corresponding effective width can be
calculated using Winter’s formula
The yield stress fy, multiplied by the effective width gives the ultimate strength of the plate
approximately.
It is seen that the skin is most effective at the stringers, where support against buckling exists. At
a given stress, the effective width (b,), as shown in Fig., is equal to the panel width at which
buckling will just begin.
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Compression buckling of thin rectangular plates
where is a nondimensional buckling coefficient for compressive loading, which is a function of
the plate aspect ratio . For the unloaded edges free and the loaded edges simply supported, this
buckling coefficient is
Simply supported rectangular plate
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Transition form column to plate as supports are added along unloaded edges. Note changes in
buckle configurations
where m and n are positive integers and is an arbitrary amplitude. Integer m corresponds to the
number of half waves in the x-direction and integer n corresponds to the number of half waves in
the y-direction. Thus, specific values of integers m and n in eq.
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Compression buckling coefficient for flat rectangular plates
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Compression buckling coefficient for selected plate aspect ratios
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Buckling of flat rectangular plates under shear loads
5 Shear buckling coefficient for selected plate aspect ratios
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A thin square plate of side a and thickness t is simply supported along each edge
and has a slight initial curvature giving an initial deflected shape:
If the plate is subjected to a uniform compressive stress s in the x direction. find an
expression for the elastic deflection w normal to the plate. Show also that the
deflection at the mid-point of the plate can be presented in the form of a Southwell
plot and illustrate your answer with a suitable sketch
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Solution
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a graph of wC against wC/σt will be a straight line of slope Nx,CR and intercept δ, i.e., a
Southwell plot.
A uniform flat plate of thickness t has a width b in the y direction and length l in the
x direction (Refer Fig.). The edges parallel to the x axis are clamped and those
parallel to the y axis are simply supported. A uniform compressive stress s is
applied in the x direction along the edges parallel to the y axis. Using an energy
method, find an approximate expression for the magnitude of the stress s that
causes the plate to buckle, assuming that the deflected shape of the plate is given by
Take potential Energy for the diagram as
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For this particular case, L = 2b, find the number of half waves m corresponding to the
lowest critical stress, expressing the result to the nearest integer. Determine also the
lowest critical stress
The total potential energy of the plate has a stationary value in the neutral equilibrium of its
buckled state, i.e., when σ = σCR. Thus
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Determination of Ultimate Compressive Load-Carrying Ability of Stiffened Panels
Overview: The ultimate compressive load-carrying ability of stiffened panels is the maximum
load they can carry before failure. This load is influenced by the geometry of the panel, material
properties, and the arrangement of stiffeners. The ultimate strength depends on the onset of
buckling, post-buckling behavior, and material yielding.
Key Steps in Determining the Ultimate Compressive Load:
1. Elastic Buckling Analysis:
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o The first step is to determine the elastic buckling load of the skin and stiffeners.
The critical buckling stress can be calculated using classical plate theory for the
skin and beam-column theory for the stiffeners.
o For a flat plate with width b, thickness t, and Young’s Modulus E, the critical
buckling stress σcr\sigmaσcr is given by:
here kk is a coefficient that depends on the boundary conditions and aspect ratio, and ν\nuν is
Poisson's ratio.
2. Post-Buckling Strength:
o After local buckling occurs, the panel may still carry additional load through
redistribution of stresses. The effective width concept is applied here to determine
how much of the panel can still carry load.
3. Ultimate Load Calculation:
o The ultimate load is determined by considering both material yielding and post-
buckling strength. For stiffened panels, the stiffeners play a critical role in
supporting loads after the skin has buckled.
o The ultimate compressive load Pu is obtained by summing the load carried by the
effective width of the skin and the stiffeners:
Where σy is the yield stress of the material, and Aeff is the effective cross-sectional area of the
panel, including the effective width of the skin and the area of the stiffeners.
List of text and reference books:
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1 Aircraft Structures for T. H. G. Megson, 6th Edition
Engineering Students
2 Analysis And Design Flight Elmer Franklin Bruhn / 1949
Vehicle Structures
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