Large deflections of rectangular orthotropic plates with nonlinear stress-strain relations

Following a brief discussion on nonlinear constitutive relations for elastic media and selection of suitable equations, the linear stress-strain relations in von Karman theory are replaced by their nonlinear counterparts to include material nonlinearity. A system of three coupled nonlinear partial differential equations are obtained by using the displacement approach for the inplane and transverse displacements. Selecting displacements in the form of double trignometric functions, using Ritz method and assuming certain relations between the displacement parameters, a single nonlinear algebraic equation for the transverse deflection of the plate with simply supported immovable edges is obtained. Numerical results pertaining to a square plate are given. © 1978.