Residual ultimate strength of cracked steel unstiffened and stiffened plates under longitudinal compression

•Imperfect steel unstiffened and stiffened plates are taken into consideration.•Influence of different cracks on the ultimate compressive strength is studied.•The most critical type of the cracks is the transversely oriented edge cracks.

This paper numerically deals with the influence of cracks (in terms of length and location) on the ultimate compressive strength characteristics of unstiffened and stiffened plate elements used in thin-walled structures. The cracks were presumed to be through-thickness, having no contact between their faces and no propagation was allowed. A series of nonlinear finite element analyses was conducted using ANSYS commercial finite element code in which the Newton–Raphson method has been employed to solve the nonlinear governing equations.This study indicates that the length of cracks and especially its location can significantly affect the ultimate strength characteristics of unstiffened and stiffened plate elements subjected to axial compressive action.