THERMAL POSTBUCKLING ANALYSIS OF RECTANGULAR PLATES ON ELASTIC FOUNDATIONS

A thermal postbuckling analysis is presented for a rectangular plate subjected to uniform and nonuniform (parabolic)temperature loading. The plate is assumed to rest on a two parameter elastic foundation. The initial geometrical imperfection of plate is taken into account.A mixed Galerkin-perturbation technique is adopted to determine thermal buckling loads and postbuckling equilibrium paths. Numerical examples are presented in which the effects of various parameters are discussed.