Application of the dual reciprocity method for the buckling analysis of plates with shear deformation

The buckling problem represents a way to evaluate the effect of in-plane forces in the behaviour of plates. The effect is distributed along the plate domain, and thus the Boundary Element Method (BEM) formulation of the problem requires domain integration. Several techniques can be used in the numerical implementation of the BEM to replace the domain integral with equivalent boundary integrals. This study adopted the Dual Reciprocity Method (DRM) to obtain a formulation without domain integrals. The bending model considered the effect of the shear deformation for better assessment of the relationship between the buckling load and the plate thickness. The analyses considered in-plane forces distributed in one or in both directions of the plate (normal forces), as well as in the tangential direction to the plate side (shear forces). The numerical results obtained for square and rectangular plates are compared with those available in the literature.