Stability of Generally Orthotropic Skew Plate

The effect of changing the orientation of the principal axes of orthotropy of the material on the stability of plates has been considered by Chamis. Using the Galerkin.s Method, he has found the buckling loads for simply supported rectangular plates subjected to both direct and shear in-plane forces. To the writers. knowledge, no similar treatment for the case of skew plates is available. Therefore, this note deals with the effect of changing the orientation of the principal orthotropic axes on the stability of clamped skew plates of constant thickness. For this purpose, oblique in-plane forces (both direct and shear) have been considered. The governing partial differential equation is developed and this equation is solved by a numerical method, adopted earlier by Hadid for the bending analysis of shells. In order to save space, the solution procedure has been outlined briefly. For numerical work, a rhombic plate, with all edges clamped, is considered. Critical buckling values of the in-plane forces are presented in graphical form of various orientations of the orthotropic axes.