Bifurcations of the von Karman equations with Robin boundary conditions

We study buckling of a rectangular plate with elastic support and restraint along two edges and simple support along the other two edges. This corresp onds to a bifurcation analysis of the von Karman equations with Robin bound ary conditions. Of special interest is the phenomenon of mode jumping in de formation of the plate. We discretize the von Karman equations with the fin ite difference methods. The solution curves branching from the first two si mple bifurcation points, resulted from splitting of a double bifurcation po int, are numerically traced with respect to the increase of the load by usi ng the continuation methods. Our numerical results show that mode jumping d epends on length of the plate and stiffness of the elastic support. (C) 199 9 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.