Plastic shear buckling of unstiffened stocky plates

A number of moderate to stocky steel and aluminum plates, with various slenderness ratios and boundary conditions are numerically analyzed under the action of pure in-plane shear and the results are validated against available analytical methods. Numerical non-linear finite element analyses are performed to assess different theoretical approaches and to picture buckling behaviors of moderate stocky plates. It is observed that while thick stocky plates possess some post-yield capacity during the hardening stage prior to plastic buckling, moderately thick plates yield and buckle concurrently followed by softening due to sudden loss of stiffness. It is also concluded that changes in the modulus of elasticity and shear modulus should be considered in the analysis and that the secondary bending stresses induced by initial out-of-plane curvature can cause significant reduction in the post-yield capacity and ultimate resistance of stocky plates.