OPTIMUM POSITION OF HORIZONTAL STIFFENERS IN WEB PANELS

Abstract

An analysis based on energy method is carried out in this work to determine the optimum location of the longitudinal stiffener, which is applicable to all plated structures including the plate girders. This analysis gives an interactive equation between the plate buckling coefficient (k), aspect ratio (β), proportional stiffener-plate ratio (δ), stiffener placement ratio (c/b) and relative flexural rigidity (γ). This equation also includes a numerical factor (α) which decides cases into pure bending or pure compressive or intermediate case. In this study pure bending case is used. The above analysis is furthered to draw 3D plots using MATLAB to demonstrate the variation of the behavior between various parameters, using three at a time and keeping others constant. The plots are then inferred upon either to make some variables constant or to make conclusions. Comparisons of various interactive plots indicate the dependency of stiffener location on the plate-stiffener geometrica...