Effect of aspect ratio on the elastic buckling of uniaxially loaded plates with eccentric holes

The Finite Element Method (FEM) has been employed to determine the elastic buckling load of uniaxially loaded rectangular perforated plates with length a and width b. Plates with simply supported edges in the out-of-plane direction and subjected to uniaxial end compression in their longitudinal direction are considered. Integer plate aspect ratios, a/b=1, 2, 3 and 4, have been chosen to assess the effect of aspect ratio on the plate buckling load. Two perforation shapes of different sizes are considered; circular, and rectangular with curved corners. The rectangular perforation is oriented such that either its long or its short side is parallel to the longitudinal direction of the plate. The center of perforation was chosen at different locations of the plate. The study shows that the buckling load of a rectangular perforated plate that could be divided into equal square panels is not the same as that of the square panel that contains the perforation when treated as a separate square plate. For rectangular plates, the study recommends not to have the center of a circular hole placed in a critical zone defined by the end half of the outer square panel, to try always to put the hole in an interior panel of the plate, and to have the distance between the edge of a circular hole and the nearest unloaded edge of the plate not less than 0.1b. The study concludes also that the use of a rectangular hole, with curved corners, with its short dimension positioned along the longitudinal direction of the plate is a better option than using a circular hole, from the plate stability point of view.