A Study on the Ultimate Strength and Failure Mode of Stiffened Panels

Different buckling failure modes of stiffened panels will result in differences in ultimate strengths. In this study, the benchmark model of the bottom of bulk carrier with appropriate initial imperfections, boundary conditions and mesh size are selected for a series of non-linear FE analyses. A failure mode discrimination method considering the change rule of ultimate strength and the stress and strain distribution of stiffened plates in ultimate limit state is proposed, and then the boundary function of the failure modes composed of four key parameters, lambda, beta, h(w)/ t(w), lambda(e), is established. Based on this boundary function, the rapid identification of failure modes and the classification of ultimate strength under different failure modes can be realized. Furthermore, the ultimate strength formulas of stiffened panels for different failure modes are obtained by data analysis from many nonlinear finite element analyses.