Thermal stresses and buckling of elastic plates with reinforced edges

An approximation method based on the method of Kantorovich is used to calculate the critical thickness necessary to prevent thermal buckling of a rectangular cantilever plate with edge stiffeners. The case where no external loads are applied is considered, and the only stresses are those due to the prescribed thermal profile. Stiffeners are found to play an important role in the thermal buckling by affecting the overall distribution of the in-plane stresses within the plate. Results show that edge stiffeners can cause less or more buckling, and that in most situations the edge stiffeners hinder buckling because a thicker plate is required than if the stiffeners were not present.