Buckling of triangular plates under uniform compression

This paper concerns the elastic buckling of triangular plates under uniform compression. Different edge conditions involving free, simple support and clamped have been considered. Moreover, the plates may have internal line supports at prescribed locations. The buckling analysis is performed using the so-called pb-2 Rayleigh-Ritz method where the Ritz function has been defined as the product of: firstly, a two-dimensional complete polynomial function; secondly, equations of the internal line supports and; thirdly, the equations of the three edges with each equation raised to power of either 0, 1 or 2 corresponding to a free, simply supported or clamped edge. Buckling factors are obtained for right-angled and isosceles triangular plates of various height-to-base ratios. These very comprehensive results should be of considerable value and practical significance in design applications. © 1994.