Abstract: The stability of cantilever rectangular plates under the symmetrical edge loading will be studied in this paper by lite varialional calculus. We are going to find out the minimum critical loading for cantilever rectangular plates subjected to various edge loadings symmetrically on a pair of opposite free edges. We’ll discuss the least critical loadings when the buckling of rectangular plates acted on bv a pair of concentrated forces, uniformly distributed loads, locally uniform distributed loads, distributed loads in the form of triangle and a pair of concentrated couples occur respectively.

Key words: coke drum, cylindrical shell, transient temperature field, temperature gradient