The ultimate and collapse response of cracked stiffened plates subjected to uniaxial compression

Cracking damage in a stiffened panel is likely to have a deleterious effect on its ultimate strength and collapse characteristics. The present study examines this problem for a crack with different configurations and increasing length inserted in a stiffened plate. The cracks are positioned normal to the direction of the prescribed axial compression and crack propagation is not considered. A key feature of this work is the role of crack closure on the structural response. The ultimate strength reduction and collapse response are reported for stiffened plates of varying aspect ratio. Finally, an FE modeling approach is presented, which has the potential to extend this investigation to multi-bay panels at a reasonable computational cost.

► Cracking damage has a deleterious effect on the ultimate strength and collapse of stiffened panels.
► Crack configurations normal to the applied load are inserted in a stiffened plate FE model.
► The stiffened plates are uniaxially compressed and crack closure influences their response.
► Crack length was found to influence the ultimate load and the collapse mode.
► An efficient combined solid-shell FE approach is presented for extension to multi-bay panels.