Load Carrying Capacity of Simply Supported Variable Thickness Circular Plates

The calculation of the load carrying capacity of variable thickness circular plates subjected to arbitrary rotational symmetric loading is presented. The analysis considers plate materials that obey either the square or the Tresca yield criterion. By using upper and lower bound theorems of limit analysis, corresponding estimations for the load carrying capacity of the plate are obtained. It is shown that these two bounds are identical. Therefore, the obtained solution would represent the exact amount of the load carrying capacity of the variable thickness circular plate. Finally, in order to obtain solutions for some special cases, plates having step changes in thickness and those with linear thickness variation are considered and corresponding results are illustrated.