Elastic-Plastic Bending of Rectangular Plates

This paper develops an elastic-plastic analysis for the response of plates of arbitrary configuration subjected to lateral loading, under the assumptions of small deflections and Tresca's yield condition. The governing field equations are derived for the elastic and plastic portions of the plate, then solved numerically for a rectangular plate. The load is applied in increments such that yielding occurs at subsequent points in the plate, thus reducing the problem to a series of incrementally linear solutions. The method is applied to the special case of a square, simply supported plate under uniform load, and the results are compared with other solutions. Experimental work is also presented which confirms the analytical basis of the theory and shows its limitations.