Nonprismatic Folded Plates: Tests

Abstract

The purpose of the investigation presented herein is to study the behavior of proposed nonprismatic folded plates. The laboratory test program consisted of tests on two sand‐araldite models of variable depth folded plates of a single unit of inverted trough section each with a 1 m span. The proposed nonprismatic shape is obtained by varying the depth of the folded plate parabolically along the span with maximum depth at mid span. The ratios of mid span depth to the depth at support for the two models were 2 and 4. The experiment was conducted for three loading conditions: (1) Uniformly distributed load on top plate and line load along both valleys; (2) uniformly distributed load on top plate; and (3) uniformly distributed load on top plate and line load along one of the valleys. The deflections, longitudinal stresses, and transverse moments predicted by the force method of analysis are compared with those obtained from the experiment and are found to be in good agreement.