Structural response of intact and damaged stiffened plated structure for ship structures

There have been extensive investigations of the compressive ultimate strength of plates both for unstiffened and stiffened elements. A wide variety of load-carrying capacity curves for compressive steel plates are used for different specifications in many countries. Comparing the curves, there is a difference in ultimate strength in all ranges of plate slenderness and stiffener rigidities. A harmonization of the use of these curves is yet to be seen for a rational ultimate limit steel design method. A brief discussion of this is made in the first part of the paper. On the other hand, there have been comparatively few studies on the ultimate strength of damaged stiffened plated structure. These damages may be considered due to variations of causes like welding and blast etc. In this paper an attempt has been made to model these damages in an FE model using ANSYS. The stiffened plate considered consists of 5 longitudinal stiffeners and is subjected to longitudinal compressive stress. Comparison is made between intact and damaged structures with different types of damaged scenarios. A useful insight into the behavior of damaged structure is obtained and some practical conclusions are drawn in order to establish residual strength of stiffened plated structure.