Deyu Wang

Elastic buckling of stiffened panels in ships under bi-axial compression

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the elastic buckling strength of typical stiffened panels under bi-axial compression. Three levels of assumptions for stiffeners are investigated: (1) Vlasov assumption; (2) stiffeners’ web plate assumed deformable; (3) both stiffeners’ web and flange plates assumed deformable. The bi-axial buckling strengths for deck and bottom stiffened panels in typical merchant ships are obtained by minimum potential energy principle, and the results are compared with corresponding finite element analysis results. It shows that Vlasov assumption should be corrected, while the other two assumptions yield similar satisfactory results. Sensitivity analysis is made for scantlings of the stiffened panel. Above three assumptions all exhibit high efficiency.