Buckling of rectangular plates with mixed edge supports

This paper presents a domain decomposition method for buckling analysis of rectangular Kirchhoff plates subjected to uniaxial inplane load and with mixed edge support conditions. A plate is decomposed into two rectangular subdomains along the change of the discontinuous support conditions. The automated Ritz method is employed to derive the governing eigenvalue equation for the plate system. Compatibility conditions are imposed for transverse displacement and slope along the interface of the two subdomains by modifying the Ritz trial functions. The resulting Ritz function ensures that the transverse displacement and slope are continuous along the entire interface of the two subdomains. The validity and accuracy of the proposed method are verified with convergence and comparison studies. Buckling results are presented for several selected rectangular plates with various combination of mixed edge support conditions.