BUCKLING CRACK SENSITIVITY OF THIN PLATES UNDER TENSION OR COMPRESSION

Thin-walled structural components are of common use in engineering applications such as aerospace, naval, nuclear power plant, pressure vessels, mechanical and civil structures; the safety assessment of such structural components requires to consider all the phenomena which can decrease their bearing capacity. Among them, the buckling and/or the fracture phenomena can heavily affects the safety factor. For very thin plate, buckling collapse under compression or even under tension (fracture or plastic failure can also take place in the latter cases), can occur. In the present research the effects of cracks’ length and orientation on the buckling collapse of rectangular elastic thin-plates under tension and compression - characterized by different boundary conditions and by various Poisson’s ratio - is considered. Several FE numerical parametric analyses results are presented in terms of critical load multiplier in compression or in tension in cracked thin plates. The obtained behavior is discussed and some interesting and useful conclusions, regarding the sensitivity to cracks of buckling loads of thin plates under compression or tension, are justified. The case of tensioned cracked plates have been considered in more detail by studying the easiest collapse between fracture, plastic flow and buckling and some failure-type maps have finally been determined.