Buckling of rectangular plates under uniaxial loading is considered. T
he plates are uniform and elastic, and the load is uniform. The unload
ed edges are simply supported, whereas the loaded edges have no out-of
-plane deflection and are elastically restrained against rotation. Bas
ed on observations reported in the literature, this rotational resista
nce may increase as the plate, is compressed. To take this stiffening
behavior into account, the rotational stiffness at the loaded edges is
assumed to be a linear function of the load. The equilibrium equation
is solved analytically, leading to two characteristic equations. One
corresponds to buckling modes that are symmetric in the direction of l
oading, and the other to antisymmetric modes. Critical loads are compu
ted and plotted as a function of the aspect ratio for various cases. R
esults for load-dependent conditions are compared to those for loaded
edges that are simply supported, clamped, or elastically restrained wi
th load-independent stiffness. It is found that the critical load of a
rectangular plate may be increased significantly if the loaded edges
stiffen as they are compressed.