Average Compressive Strengths of Stiffened Plates for In-Service Vessels Under Lateral Pressure

This paper presents estimation of average compressive strengths of three types of stiffened panels under lateral pressure and axial compression based on simplified formulas from CSRs and nonlinear FEAs. FEA scenarios are prepared based on the slenderness ratios of the stiffened panels used for in-service vessels. The seven step lateral pressures by 1bar increment are imposed on FE models assuming maximum 30m water height. The number of FEAs for FB-, AB-, and TB-stiffened panels is totally 189 times. FEA results show that existence of pressure can evolves significant reduction of ultimate strengths, meanwhile CSR formulas do not take into account the lateral pressure effect. Lateral pressure acting on the stiffened panel with higher column slenderness ratio more reduces the ultimate strengths than those with smaller column slenderness ratio. A new concept of relative average compressive strain energy instead of the ultimate strength is introduced in order to rationally compare the average compressive strength through complete compressive straining regime. The differences of the ultimate strengths between CSR formulas and FEA results are relatively small for FB- and AB-stiffened panels, but larger discrepancies of relative average compressive strain energies are shown.