Buckling analysis of steel plates in composite structures with novel shape function

Current study on the buckling analysis of steel plate in composite structures normally focuses on applying finite element method to derive the buckling stress. However, it is time consuming, computationally complicated and tedious for general use in design by civil engineers. Therefore, in this study an analytical study is conducted to predict the buckling behavior of steel plates in composite structures. Hand calculation method was proposed based on energy principle. Novel buckling shapes with biquadratic functions along both loaded and unloaded direction were proposed to satisfy the boundary condition. Explicit solutions for predicting the critical local buckling stress of steel plate is obtained based on the Rayleigh-Ritz approach. The obtained results are compared with both experimental and numerical data. Good agreement has been achieved. Furthermore, the influences of key factors such as aspect ratio, width to thickness ratio, and elastic restraint stiffness on the local buckling performance are comprehensively discussed.