Imperfection sensitivity analysis of laminated folded plates

•An imperfection sensitivity analysis of laminated folded plate is presented.•The geometrically nonlinear analysis is performed using Koiter approach.•The Monte Carlo simulation is employed to account large sample of imperfections.•The carry load capacity can evaluated statistically.•The computational cost to account thousand of imperfection is on average of few seconds.

A novel methodology for imperfection sensitivity analysis is presented. Koiter׳s perturbation method is used to calculate the imperfection paths emanating from mode interaction bifurcations, which occur on the post-buckling paths of the single modes. The Monte Carlo method is used to test a large number of modes and all possible interactions among them. The computational cost is low because of the efficiency of Koiter׳s method. The demands of Koiter׳s method for accurate evaluations of higher order derivatives of the potential energy are met by a mixed, corotational element.