Dynamic buckling of thin isotropic plates subjected to in-plane impact

The dynamic stability behaviour of imperfect simply supported plates subjected to in-plane pulse loading is investigated. For the calculation of dynamic buckling loads a stress failure criterion is applied. The large-deflection plate equations are solved by a Galerkin method by using Navier's double Fourier series. In this paper the dynamic load factor (DLF) is redefined and plots that are useful for the design of plate structures are presented. Parametric studies are performed in which the influences of the pulse duration, shock function, imperfection, geometric dimensions and limit stress of the material are discussed. Comparison between the dynamic buckling loads, which are obtained by the commonly used criterion of Budiansky and Hutchinson [Proceedings of the 11th International Congress of Applied Mechanics (1964) 636], and the dynamic elastic limit loads, which are computed by the stress failure criterion, shows that the latter criterion is more useful for the design of lightweight structures. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.