Influence of Slenderness Ratio on the Buckling Behaviour of Curved Panels in Pure Shear

Abstract

ABSTRACTCurved steel plates are commonly used in aerospace and naval engineering, using very thin plates in order to create lightweight structures. In recent years, the use of this kind of plates is extended towards bridge design, with several examples in Belgium. Since bridges have to carry larger loads, the thicknesses of these plates increase up to several centimetres. The decreased plate slenderness influences the buckling behaviour of the plates, leading to elastoplastic buckling. Multiple finite element models are created to investigate the buckling response of these plates. A single plate with simply supported and clamped supported edges are subjected to pure shear. The parameters used are the plate thickness and the curvature ratio in order to have a large spectrum of stability influence. Results show that for the perfect plates the buckling behaviour changes with increasing curvature. With the use of the American Specifications AISI and their specifications for flat plate thicknesses, new rules are determined to predict the buckling behaviour for all kinds of curved panels.