Semi-analytical buckling strength analysis of plates with arbitrary stiffener arrangements

Abstract

Buckling of plates with arbitrarily oriented, sniped stiffeners is studied. The main objective is to present and validate an approximate, semianalytical computational model for such plates subjected to in-plane loading. Estimation of the buckling strength is made using the von Mises' yield criterion for the membrane stress as the strength limit. The formulations derived are implemented in a Fortran computer code, and numerical results are obtained for a variety of plate and stiffener geometries. The model may handle complex plate geometries, by using inclined stiffeners to enclose irregular plate shapes. The method allows for a very efficient analysis. Relatively high numerical accuracy is achieved with low computational efforts. The results are, in most cases, found to be conservative compared to fully nonlinear finite element analysis results.

Approximate buckling strength analysis of arbitrarily stiffened, stepped plates

“…It is found that z c = 0 is an acceptable value for eccentric stiffeners in many practical cases as well. In practical design work, a z c -value calculated with a b e of about b e = 20t has been suggested [8,15].…”

“…Similarly, contributions have to be added for any rotational or translational restraints in the interior of the plate. For additional details, see Brubak et al [8,15]. …”

“…It represents an extension of an earlier work [8] on constant thickness plates with sniped stiffeners. The present study also includes extensions to end-loaded (continuous) stiffeners and torsional stiffness considerations, but does not include the local failure modes of the stiffeners.…”

Semi-analytical postbuckling analysis of stiffened imperfect plates with a free or stiffened edge

“…Three edges are supported (continuously) in the out-ofplane direction, and the last edge is either completely free or provided with an edge stiffener. A supported edge boundary may be simply supported, or it may be clamped or partially restrained by adding rotational spring restraints along the edges, or parts of the edges, in the same manner as described in Brubak and Hellesland [9].…”

“…(5), (7) and (10)), but with only one term in each direction, are used in Bažant and Cedolin [16] to study simply supported, unstiffened plates. By including more terms in the displacement fields in each direction, it is also possible to model stiffened plates in the same manner as in Brubak et al [9,14,17]. For the displacement fields representing a plate with a free edge (Eqs.…”