Buckling and Failure of Flat Stiffened Panels

Abstract

Compression panels, regardless of the local buckling of the skin, can be divided into three regions: short panels, having slenderness ratio equal to or less than 10, long panels, which are shown to fail essentially because of the long wave buckling of the skin, and panels of intermediate length in the transition region. In this paper, a comprehensive and self-sufficient analysis is presented for computing the failing stresses of stiffened panels, in particular, Z-section stiffened panels, in all possible regions of interest. The analysis not only includes the review of the methods previously proposed, but also comprises of many new results, such as the author's most recent formulas based on energy methods for the short and long wave buckling of the skin, the development of the formulas for the maximum strength of panels, and the application of the power law for determining the strength of the panels in the transition range. Since numerous types of panels and modes of failure are involved, the methods of analysis naturally are complex. Therefore, for the clarification of the various steps involved in the computations and for the removal of the confusion that may arise in the minds of the readers, adequate examples are included wherever needed. Extensive comparison of the analysis also is made with tests on 75S-T6 and 24S-T aluminum Z-stiffened panels. It is shown that the analysis is in good agreement with tests.