Abstract:

ESDU 94005 introduces a Fortran program, ESDUpac A9405, that calculates the buckling load for the plate for uniform, in-plane uniaxial or biaxial direct loading with or without shear. The program deals with all symmetrical combinations of clamped and simply-supported edge conditions and takes account of out-of-plane shear deformations. It applies to isotropic materials, sandwich panels and specially- orthotropic laminated plates. The input to the program includes the plate stiffnesses; ESDU 68029 gives guidance on estimating them for a sandwich panel and ESDU 81047 provides a program to calculate the stiffnesses for a laminated plate from the layer properties. Given one or two of the applied load components, the program will calculate a specified load to cause buckling (or warn that buckling has already occurred); alternatively, given the ratios of the three loads one to another it will provide the loads in the same ratio at buckling. The full input and output to the program is explained, and illustrated with worked examples, and warning messages that may be output are indicated.