Buckling Analysis of Steel Plates with Stiffened Openings Subjected to In-plane Combined Stresses

Abstract

This paper presents a theoretical elastic buckling analysis of steel rectangular plates with stiffened or unstiffened openings. The plate is subjected to in-plane combined linearly varying compressive and shearing edge stresses. In this analysis, the plate is assumed simply supported along all edges. The location and thesize of the opening, the stiffeners position and the cross section area of the stiffeners are the main parameters studied. Moreover, the compressive stress gradient (ψ) and the ratio of applied normal and shear stresses on the plate edges are taken into account. The minimum potential energy technique is used to analyze and solve the general mathematical formulations of the plate buckling under the aforesaid situation.Explicit equations as well as simplified ones are derived from which the buckling load of the plate can be obtained. The present predictions of the analysis are shown to be in a good agreement with the theoretical and experimental previous studies available. The predicted equations, graphs and the computer program are found to be more rational, accurate and versatile for design engineers.