Elastic buckling of simply supported stiffened steel plates with circular opening

Abstract

Steel plates are used as the main components of steel elements in many structures. Openings in steel elements may exist for maintenance or inspection purposes in addition to creating paths for different fixtures such as air conditioning, pipes, and facilities. The structural performance of plates with openings is different from that of solid plates when subjected to axial compressive load. Openings affect local buckling, lateral torsional buckling, and shear of plates. Adding stiffeners around openings is a common engineering practice to strengthen plates. However, different design codes and guides provide estimates of the flexural and shear capacity of beams with no clear formulas for the influence of such openings on axial buckling strength. In this study, a parametric study has been performed using general-purpose finite element software, ANSYS, in order to study the effect of using stiffeners around circular opening in simply supported axially loaded plates on the elastic buckling behavior. Different parameters were considered including the aspect ratio of the plate, opening diameter, opening position in both horizontal and vertical directions, and stiffener’s dimensions. The results of the extensive parametric study are used to propose an empirical design formula considering the different studied parameters.