Experimental investigation on stiffened plates with non-continuous longitudinal stiffeners ending within the panel

The present contribution investigates a construction method predominately applied in crane manufacturing known as non-continuous longitudinal stiffening. In this approach, the longitudinal stiffeners end within the panel, leaving a gap before reaching the transverse stiffener or the end of the girder. Current standardization is limited to conventional continuous stiffening. Therefore, the present study conducts an experimental test series of 50 close-to-reality scaled, non-continuously longitudinally stiffened plates subjected to uniform compression to characterize their structural behavior. The results are compared regarding different geometry parameters. One main conclusion is that the gap drastically governs the ultimate resistance, usually leading to a triangular-shaped buckling mode.