Buckling Analysis of Orthotropic and Anisotropic Rectangular Plates by GDQ Method

In this paper, buckling of orthotropic rectangular plates under different loadings was investigated. For this reason, governing buckling equations for an isotropic plate were modified by applying constitutive equations of orthotropic materials. After obtaining the equations of orthotropic plates, Generalized Differential Quadrature method (GDQM) was applied on buckling equations and thus a set of Eigen value equations resulted. In order to solve this Eigen value problem, a computer program was developed using MATLAB software in a way that the influence of different parameters such as length to width ratio (aspect ratio), the number of layers, the angle of layers arrangement, material of layers, kind of loading and boundary conditions were included. A buckling load factor was calculated for simply supported and clamped supported plates. The results of GDQ method were compared with reported results from Rayleigh – Ritz method and with results from solving the Finite element using ANSYS 8.0 software. The comparison showed the accuracy of obtained result clearly.