Compressive Strength of Simply Supported Plates Under Hydrostatic Pressure : Effect of Aspect Ratio of Plates

Abstract

As a basic study on the buckling and compressive strength of a ship's bottom plating, authors had already studied buckling strength of plates (rectangular plates of aspect ratio α=2, 3 and 4 and infinitely long plate of α=∞) under increasing compression and constant hydrostatic pressure. Further, by using results of these studies, they had also studied the compressive strength of simply supported long rectangular plates (α=3 and 4) under such combined loads. In this paper, the compressive strength of simply supported plates (α=1, 2 and ∞) is theoretically clarified following the previous studies. Calculations are performed by means of the method assuming that the plate behaves elastically up to the collapse, and it collapses when the plate will satisfy the condition of plastic collapse based on plastic analysis in which collapse mechanism is assumed and large deformation theory is considered. From these results including those for plates of α=3 and 4, the effect of aspect ratio of plates on the compressive strength of simply supported plates under such combined loads, is also discussed.