Plate‐Stiffener Assemblies in Uniform Compression. Part II: Postbuckling

Abstract

The postbuckling behavior of plate‐stiffener assemblies in uniform axial compression is investigated in which the energy method is used to model various in and out‐of‐plane boundary conditions. The loaded edges are treated as simply supported and remain straight. The unloaded edges can be simply supported or elastically restrained against rotation. Beside these out‐of‐plane boundary conditions, the in‐plane boundary condition for the unloaded edges may be any of the following: free translation, fully restrained against translation, straight, free to bend, and partially restrained against in‐plane bending. Analytical expressions for the membrane strain energy for each of these boundary conditions for any plate aspect ratio are derived and the geometric properties of the stiffeners that dictate these boundary conditions are defined in the paper. Typical numerical results are obtained for square plates and the influence of these boundary conditions on the load‐deflection and load‐end shortening behavior is illustrated.