Experimental verification of an inelastic plate theory based on plastic flow theory

The paper aims to verify a recently proposed inelastic plate theory by Becque (2010) [1]. In a first part, the theory is revisited and some necessary corrections to the derivation are presented.A total of 486 data points pertaining to the local buckling of aluminium and stainless steel plates and plate assemblies were collected from literature in order to be compared to the predictions of the theory. For plates with straightforward boundary conditions (either simply supported edges or free edges), the theoretical buckling load was obtained by solving Becque's differential equation analytically or numerically. For plate assemblies with less obvious boundary conditions, including plain channels, lipped cannels, Z- and H-sections, the buckling load was obtained by employing an inelastic semi-analytical finite strip method based on Becque's differential equation. Including all data points, the average ratio of the predicted buckling load to the experimentally measured buckling load was 0.98 with a standard deviation of 0.069, thus confirming the proposed theory.

► A new inelastic plate theory is verified against the experiment. ► Single plates with various support conditions, as well as plate assemblies, are considered. ► The proposed plate theory yields excellent predictions compared to the experiment.