What is a good design procedure for plastic components to protect against buckling?
Pioneer Technologies has been involved in a number of projects involving buckling. Based on our experience, we recommend as follows. An important point to remember is (1) NOT to mix concepts of stress and static strength with Buckling, since they do not indicate anything about Buckling. Designing only for strength tends to be an under-design against buckling. It is a necessary but not sufficient recommendation to apply a factor of safety on yield strength of about 5.0. This is not sufficient because a detailed buckling analysis – non-linear one if necessary – is required to understand the product-specific modes of buckling and protect against it. Depending on the first iteration design, the design may need further beefing up. Most importantly, it is to recognized that any handbook formula on elastic instability will under-predict the part size for plastics.
