ON THE ORIENTATION OF BUCKLING DIRECTION OF ANISOTROPIC ELASTIC PLATE UNDER UNIAXIAL COMPRESSION

The theory of small deformation superimposed on a large deformation of an elastic solid isused to investigate the buckling of anisotropic elastic plate under uniaxial compression.The buckling direc-tion (the direction of buckling wave) is generally not aligned with the compression direction.The equationfor determining the buckling direction is obtained.It is found that the out-of-plane buckling of anisotropicelastic plate is possible and both buckling conditions for flexural and extensional modes are presented.As a specific case of buckling of anisotropic elastic plate,the buckling of an orthotropic elastic platesubjected to a compression in a direction that forms an arbitrary angle with an elastic principal axis of the ma-terials is analyzed.It is found that the buckling direction depends on the angle between the compression di-rection and the principal axis of the materials,the critical compressive force and plate-thickness parameters.In the case that the compression direction is aligned with the principal axis of the materials,the buckling di-rection will be aligned with the compression one irrespective of critical compressive force and plate-thickness.