A composite view on Windenburgʹs problem: Buckling and minimum stiffness requirements of compressively loaded orthotropic plates with edge reinforcements

This paper discusses the buckling behaviour of orthotropic composite plates under uniform uniaxial compression with one free reinforced unloaded edge. A typical application example for use of such a mechanical model is the web of stiffeners and frames attached to the fuselage skin of an aircraft. The considered plates are rectangular and simply supported at the loaded transverse edges. One of the longitudinal unloaded edges is also simply supported, while the second unloaded edge is not supported at all but is reinforced by a flange of arbitrary cross-section. At first, an exact solution for the elastic buckling problem is derived from the governing differential equation by imposing the underlying boundary conditions. Thereafter, two approximate closed-form solutions for the buckling load are derived, which can be conveniently used for practical application purposes. Generic buckling curves using characteristic non-dimensional quantities are also presented. Finally, the question of the required bending stiffness EI min of the flange is treated, to ensure that the flange withstands buckling and provides simply supported boundary conditions to the free reinforced plate edge.