Elastic Stress Distribution in and Stability of Rectangularly Notched Plates Axially Loaded by Uniform Compression

In recent years, the design of notched members has been a challenge to structural, mechanical and aeronautical engineers. Notched members are frequently used in the aircraft, missiles, automobile, and ship building industries where available space is limited to a minimum. More often notches are needed for various other reasons as the passage of electrical wire bundles, hydraulic and air conduits or other structural members. Sometimes a notch serves as a lightening measure or as an inspection access opening. More precise solutions in determining the critical buckling loads are needed to replace guess and approximate solutions. This is due to the fact that stress concentrations in plates become large in magnitude especially in the notch vicinity, even for very simple loading conditions. An analysis of the elastic stress distribution is the first step leading to the theoretical determination of the elastic buckling load of a plate member. The main objective of this investigation is to obtain the critical buckling load of a thin elastic rectangular notched plate simply supported along two edges and free along the other two edges, and subjected to uniform longitudinal compression. Four plates with the same overall dimensions but different notch dimensions are under consideration. One side of the rectangular notches is held constant while the other side is varied. A graph can then be plotted for the critical buckling coefficient verses the aspect ratios of the notch