THE DEFORMATION OF A NON-UNIFORM PLATE INTO A NEARLY CONICAL SHAPE

Abstract

This paper develops the differential equations governing the deformations of non-uniform flat plates bent into cones. These equations are used to calculate the anticlastic deformations of a linearly tapered plate bent into a nearly conical surface, and the numerical results are compared with the corresponding ones for constant thickness. When the thickness taper of the plate and the vertex angle are small, the deformations are shown to approach those for a uniform plate bent into a cylindrical surface.