Numerical Investigation on Ultimate Compressive Strength of Welded Stiffened Plates Built by Steel Grades of S235–S390

Abstract

The welded stiffened plate is widely used in naval architecture and offshore engineering as a basic structural member. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of welding residual stress and steel grade on the ultimate strength of stiffened plates under uniaxial compressive load by non-linear finite element analysis. Nineteen stiffened plates built with three types of stiffeners with various column slenderness ratios provided in the ISSC’2000 VI.2 benchmark calculations are employed in the present study. The commercial finite element code ABAQUS is applied to simulate the collapse behavior of the stiffened plates and verified against the benchmark calculations. Fabrication-related imperfections, such as initial deflections and residual stresses, are accounted for in the simulations. The ultimate strength of stiffened plates built in common shipbuilding steels, namely S235, S315, S355 and S390, are investigated by varying the yield strength of materials in the simulation. Analysis of the numerical results shows that the welding residual stress reduces the ultimate strength of stiffened plates, and increase in yield strength of the material can effectively improve the ultimate strength of common ship stiffened plates; and quantitative analyses of their influences have also been performed.

Keywords

• stiffened plate
• ultimate strength
• welding residual stress
• shipbuilding steel
• non-linear finite element analysis