Elastic stability of all edges simply supported, stepped and stiffened rectangular plate under uniaxial loading

In this paper using finite difference method the lower bound buckling load for simply supported stepped and stiffened rectangular plate with uniformly distributed compressive forces in one direction is discussed. The plate is divided into 400 rectangular meshes. The partial derivatives are approximated using central difference formula. Three hundred and sixty-one equations are formed and using MATLAB the least eigenvalue is obtained. The buckling coefficients are calculated for different types of stepped plates and the results are presented in tables and graphs for ready use by designers. Two separate tables are presented in comparison with the exact buckling factor for stepped rectangular plate by Xiang, Wei and Wang. The results give a close agreement.