Abstract: Considering the contact action by monoside restraints and based on Mindlin's plate transverse shear theory and the support characteristics of bolted moderately thick plates in thin-walled structure, a method to analyze load bearing capacity of bolted moderately thick plates was proposed. The elastoplastic bending of plates supported on two edges of linearly hardened material was studied by FEM method, of which whether the peripheral stress of bolt contacting area goes into the plastic region is taken as a criterion so as to calculate the load bearing capacity. Experiments taking titanium alloy as specimens were conducted for determining the load bearing capacity of the bolted plates and verifying the validity of the proposed method.