On the stability of anisotropic viscoelastic thin plates

A creep buckling analysis of orthotropic viscoelastic thin plates, simply-supported all around, is given. In order to simulate the real conditions, the relaxation time of modulus in different principal material orientations is arbitrary in the constitutive equations of the plates. In deriving the associated governing equations, transverse shear deformations are incorporated. By means of theoretical analysis, the instantaneous critical load and durable critical load are obtained. In the example, a time incremental method is used for the first time to calculate the creep deformation of the viscoelastic plates with initial imperfection, subjected to a constant compressive load for a long time.