Ultimate strength assessment of stiffened panel under uni-axial compression with non-linear equivalent single layer approach

Abstract

Steel stiffened panels are widely used in engineering design and construction. However, numerical modeling and analysis effort for a three-dimensional (3D) stiffened panel may be notable, especially for the ultimate limit state of ship structures. Therefore, a homogenization method is outlined that transforms 3D stiffened panel into an Equivalent Single Layer (ESL) concerning the same mechanical behavior. ESL stiffnesses are obtained with a unit cell analyses based on stiffened panel where periodicity is imposed with boundary conditions based on a first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT). Stiffnesses were determined from the first derivative of a membrane force and bending moment obtained with numerical simulations. The effect of initial imperfection shape was included in the analysis to account for local and global buckling behavior. ESL with non-linear stiffness was implemented in Abaqus UGENS subroutine, allowing incremental evaluation of stiffness. Ultimate strength prediction of a steel grillage model with ESL finite element analysis was in excellent agreement with detailed 3D FEM analysis. The key in this analysis was consideration of non-linear ESL stiffness as linear analysis was unable to detect the point where ultimate strength capacity of the grillage was reached.