The development of an approximate method for the design of bead-stiffened composite panels

In order to, avoid several time consuming and costly finite elements buckling analyses, an approximate method is also proposed to obtain the upper and lower bound buckling load for the beaded panels. This fairly simple method benefits from the closed-form solution of a rectangular orthotropic plain plate. If the appropriate length and width are adopted for the orthotropic plain plate, the closed-form buckling solution of the same plate which is assumed to be either simply supported or clamped at the two sides can be used, respectively, to represent the lower or the upper limits to the critical buckling load of the corresponding composite beaded panel. This method can be used to estimate the buckling load of beaded panels in preliminary design stage of structures.