Effect of Stiffener Strength on the Failure Mode of Stiffened Plate under Confined Explosion: Experimental Studies

Abstract

The objective of this work was to investigate the effect of stiffener strength on the failure mode of an outer-stiffened plate subjected to confined blast loading. A relatively rigid box with one open side was designed, to provide a confined space, and the stiffened plate was fixed onto the open side. Various field blast experiments of stiffened plates with different dimensions were conducted. Transducers were placed on typical points to record the overpressure history. The post-explosion deformation was drawn utilizing the 3D scanner technique, and the failure modes of the stiffened plates were examined in detail. The effect of plate thickness, stiffener thickness, stiffener height, and stand-off distance on the failure mode of the stiffened plate is discussed. It was shown that two typical failure modes were observed in the stiffened plates, namely uniform global dome deformation and nonuniform dome deformation, with local lattice along the stiffeners. The transformation of these two deformation modes originated from the relative strength of the stiffener compared to the plate, hence a relative strength factor was proposed to clarify the division.