Ultimate strength and ductility characteristics of intermittently welded stiffened plates

A series of detailed numerical analyses of stiffened steel plates subjected to in plane longitudinal or transverse compressive load is performed. Stiffened plates are selected from the deck structure of real sea-going ships and inland waterway vessels. Three different stiffener-to-plate welding procedures are considered: continuous welding, chain intermittent fillet welding and staggered intermittent fillet welding. Special attention is paid to finite element modelling of the fillet welds as applied in practice to verify the reliability of the FEM. Some available experimental results are simulated verifying the reliability of the finite element method. Full-range equilibrium paths are traced for non-linear elasto-plastic response of the stiffened plates, using a commercially available FEM programme, ADINA. Strength and ductility characteristics of the stiffened plates are discussed in details.