Static Instability of Rectangular Plates

Abstract

This chapter deals with the static instability problems of rectangular plates. First, fundamental concepts of the theory of elastic stability are illustrated and discussed. Second, two fundamental formulas of the energy-based criterion of bifurcational stability loss of an elastic continuous mechanical system are derived. In addition, advantages and disadvantages of today’s stability investigation approaches are critically revisited, with emphasis on problems not yet satisfactorily solved. In the next section various methods devoted to stability investigations are briefly addressed, exhibiting their strong and weak points regarding applications with particular attention to computational advantages of Galerkin’s methods.