Compressive buckling analysis of plates in unilateral contact

The unilateral contact buckling behaviour of delaminated plates in a composite member is studied in this paper, where the two-dimensional mechanical problem is simplified to a one-dimensional mathematical model following the assumption of a buckling mode function in terms of the lateral coordinates. After the governing differential equations for the plate parts in the contact and non-contact regions have been solved, the problem is reduced to just two nonlinear algebraic equations allowing the buckling coefficient to be obtained through an iteration method. A simplified method is also deduced based on an assumed zero length of contact. The numerical results of the buckling coefficients based on both methods show good agreement. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.