Buckling Analysis of Polar Orthotropic Circular and Annular Plates of Uniform and Linearly Varying Thickness with Different Edge Conditions

This paper investigates symmetrical buckling of orthotropic circular and annular plates of continuous variable thickne ss. uniform compression loadin g is applied at the plate outer boundary. thickness varies linearly along radial direction. inner edge is free, while outer edge has different boundary conditions: clamped, simply and elastically restraint against rotation. the optimi zed ritz method is applied for buckling analysis. in this method, a polyn omi al function that is based on static deformation of orthotrop ic circular plates in bending is used. also, by employing an exponential parameter in deformation function, eigenvalue is minimi zed in respect to this parameter. the advantage of this procedure is simplicity, in compariso n with other methods, while whole algorithm for solution can be coded for computer programming. the effects of variation of radius, thickne ss, different boundary conditions, ratio of radial young modulu s to circumferential one, and ratio of outer radius to inner one in annular plates on buckling load factor are investigated. the obtained results show that in plate with identi cal thickness, increasing of outer radius decreases the buckling load factor. moreo ver, increase of thickn ess of the plates results in increase of buckling load factor.