Postbuckling Analysis of Plates Under Combined Loads by a Mixed Finite Element and Boundary Element Method

Abstract

The postbuckling behavior of thin plates under combined loads is studied in this paper by using a mixed boundary element and finite element method. The transverse and the in-plane deformation of the plates are analyzed by the boundary element method and the finite element method, respectively. Spline functions were used as the interpolation functions and shape functions in the solution of both methods. A quadratic rectangular spline element is adopted in the finite element procedure. Numerical results are given for typical problems to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The possibilities to extend the method developed in this paper to more complicated postbuckling problems are discussed in the concluding section.