Unilateral buckling of point-restrained triangular plates

In this paper the unilateral buckling behavior of point restrained triangular plates is studied. Firstly, the energy functional of a general triangular plate with elastic foundation is calculated. The Rayleigh–Ritz method for investigating the local buckling of unilaterally restrained triangular plates is applied. The displacement functions and restraining medium are modeled as polynomials and tensionless foundation respectively. The results are obtained for different boundary conditions, aspect ratios and various in-plane compressive and shear loadings. Confirming the validity of this investigation, convergence and comparison studies are undertaken. The comparisons show the efficiency and accuracy of the presented method.