Hencky bar-net model for buckling analysis of plates under non-uniform stress distribution

The Hencky bar-net model (HBM) has been shown to be a physical structural representation of the finite difference plate model (FDM). This paper extends the HBM to tackle buckling problems of rectangular plates under in-plane non-uniform loads. This class of problems requires a pre-buckling stress analysis involving plane-stress elasticity equations in order to establish the non-uniform stress distributions in the plate domain for input loads to the HBM. The converged results given by HBM compare well with existing reference solutions; thereby verifying the model. The HBM is also used to generate some new buckling solutions for rectangular plates under various point loads and partially distributed loads.