Local buckling of longitudinally stiffened plates with rotational stiffness of closed-section ribs

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that the rotational stiffness of longitudinally installed closed-section ribs increases the local buckling strength of thin plates. Thus, in this study, the equations for the buckling strength of compressively loaded stiffened plates, which reasonably account for the partially restrained effect, were theoretically derived using the principle of minimum potential energy. Through three-dimensional refined finite element analysis performed using ABAQUS that appropriately simulates the buckling of plates stiffened with rotational rigidities along the sides, a series of parametric numerical analyses were conducted to examine the variation in buckling stresses based on the influential parameters revealed from the theoretical formulas. Further simplified and readily applicable formulas for the strength increment factor were derived from a series of rigorous regression analyses on the parametric analysis results. A comparative study of the suggested approximate solutions and the numerical analysis results was carried out to validate the proposed method.