Global asymptotic approximations for wrinkling of polar orthotropic annular plates in tension

The role of polar orthotropy is investigated in relation to an elastic wrinkling problem for annular thin plates in tension. An appealing feature of this generalised constitutive framework is the possibility of allowing the radial and circumferential directions to have different bending stiffnesses. By suitably rescaling the buckling equation, three main parameters are identified as being responsible for the behaviour of the linear wrinkling mechanism. We conduct a number of singular-perturbation analyses in order to capture the dependence of the critical loads and mode numbers on the various physical parameters that enter in the description of the problem.