Influence of stiffener location on the stability of stiffened plates under compression and in-plane bending

The elastic behaviour of stiffened plates under non-uniform edge compression is investigated. As a first stage, an energy formulation, in which the structure is modelled as assembled plate and beam elements, is presented. A Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) algorithm is then used to evaluate the buckling load and the associated buckling mode for given plate/stiffener geometric properties. Results are presented showing the influence of the stiffener location on the stability of the structure under combined compression and bending. Then, a strategy is presented for optimum location of the stiffener. The proposed methodology can be used to develop an improved design procedure for efficient design of stiffened plates under this type of loading.