Ultimate strength characteristics of cracked stiffened plates subjected to uniaxial compression

Cracking damage in a stiffened plate affects its ultimate strength and collapse behavior. To examine this problem, this paper presents a nonlinear finite element study on the ultimate strength of cracked stiffened plates subjected to uniaxial compression. The cracks in transverse direction are presumed to be through-thickness, and crack propagation is not considered. The crack damage is assumed to exist on plate only or on both plate and stiffener and the relevant four types of cracked models are accounted for in this paper. The effects of crack length and crack location as well as plate thickness on the ultimate strength characteristics of cracked stiffened plates are analyzed. A series of nonlinear finite element analyses is carried out for the analyses where the crack damage effect is treated as a main parameter. It is concluded that the presence of crack may change the collapse mode and stress distributions of stiffened plate, and will decrease its ultimate strength. The reduction of ultimate strength increases as the crack length increases, while the longitudinal location of crack has little influence on the ultimate strength reduction of cracked stiffened plate.