Influence of continuity and aspect-ratio on the buckling of skew plates and plate assemblies

New buckling interaction results are presented for skew plates and prismatic assemblies of plates, which illustrate the intluence of continuity over supports for a range of aspect-ratio and loading combinations. The work follows from initial comparisons (York and Williams, 1995, Buckling analysis of skew plate assemblies : classical plate theory results incorporating Lagrangian multipliers. Comput. Struct. 56,625-635) with those in the literature for isolated plates and stiffened benchmark panels, consisting of prismatic assemblies of plates. The analysis method, which is an enhancement to the existing computer program VICONOPT, is based on an “exact” analytical solution using Classical Plate Theory. This accounts for an infinitely long prismatic plate assembly supported at regular intervals over supports with general skew angle a, forming a series of skew plates or plate assemblies joined end to end. This modelling can be described as exhibiting uni-axial continuity. The enhancement relates to a recent modification of the recurrence equations, which now accounts for i&tritely wide skew plate assemblies supported at regular transverse intervals. This modelling possesses b&axial continuity. Crown copyright 0 1996 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd