A study of a clamped circular thin plate deformation under internal air pressure by a designed testing mechanism system.

Circular thin plates are using in a wide range of engineering applications like roof and floor of building, deck slab of bridge, water tanks, turbine disks etc. Despite that, few experimental studies have been conducted to examine the behavior of a thin circular plate under uniformly distributed loads. The present study investigates the failure behavior of uniformly loaded clamped circular thin plates experimentally. The tests are conducting with a pressure system specially built for this work. It was developed to measure the maximum deflection of the circular plate under uniform internal hydrostatic pressure. Numerical and experimental results were compared and showed a good correlation for all plates investigated. The failure mechanism is discussed based on the results of numerical calculations and the results of a scanning electronic microscope (SEM). The results observed in this study show a good understanding of the problems related to different internal pressure values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]