Background <p>Plates are crucial structural components, and techniques for predicting their buckling loads are a critical concern, as buckling can lead to sudden and catastrophic failure. Predicting buckling loads accurately helps improve design and ensure the safety of structural components.</p> Objective <p>This study investigates the buckling load and behaviour of pre-twisted plates, aiming to verify the vibration correlation technique (VCT) as a reliable method for predicting buckling loads through comparison with experimental results.</p> Methods <p>A specially designed fixture is used to apply a pre-twist angle to the plates, ensuring that they experience initial angular strain–a common real-world scenario. Plates with diverse length-to-width ratios are prepared, and axial compression is gradually applied while maintaining a constant pre-twist angle. Vibration analysis is conducted at various stages of compression, and then the VCT is used to predict the buckling load.</p> Results <p>The pre-twist angle significantly enhances bending rigidity. It improves the limit load by up to 50% and a linear relationship is noted between the pre-twist angle and the limit load. Conversely, the post-buckling response remains essentially unchanged. Mixed modes are observed at higher initial angular strain values, causing a decrease in the accuracy of VCT predictions. Although the VCT is a reliable method for flat and slightly twisted plates, its performance degrades with increasing geometric complexity, and deviations reach up to 22.7%.</p> Conclusion <p>The pre-twist significantly affects the buckling behaviour. It is reported that the VCT is a partially robust method at lower pre-twist angles, and its use in geometrically non-standard plates requires further methodological refinement.</p>