Bifurcation stability of stiffened thin plates using the compound finite strip method

Abstract

Paper deals with bifurcation stability of stiffened thin plates using the compound finite strip method. Using this method it is also possible to introduce point supports into plate which allows modeling of columns. Thin plate is obtained by simple addition of column and beam stiffness properties into finite strip via deformation energy. According to bifurcation stability theory, critical load is obtained from the standard eigenvalue problem. This approach allows efficient computation of stiffened plates without the need for additional degrees of freedom. Program code is written in software package Wolfram Mathematica. Verification of the model is done through comparison with the analytical solutions and the one obtained from commercial software packages