Analytic and experimental study for light alloy aluminium panels under

AbstrAct Purpose: Aluminium alloys have been indispensable for the progress of many technologies during the last decades. In particular, most stiffeners in aerospace structures are composed of aluminium panels often solicited with elastic and plastic bucking under particular boundary and loading conditions. The purpose of this paper is to enhance the difficulties encountered to predict the incipient elastic-plastic buckling for thin aluminium plates under combined compressive loads. Design/methodology/approach: The used methodology was an analytic non linear approach, validated further with an experimental investigation. In fact, the instability of thin elastic-plastic rectangular panels made of 2024 T45 alloys is analyzed. General concept of the Von Kaman’s equation with a set of trigonometric and harmonic functions was used in the analytic model. The computation of buckling loads concerns both elastic and plastic instability solutions. Developments in the plastic range were concerned with the (j2d) deformation and the (J2f) flow constitutive laws.