Numerical and experimental buckling response of moderately thick and thick composite plates with various stiffener layouts

Abstract

The buckling behavior of moderately thick and thick stiffened composite plates with different stiffener layouts is formulated based on the higher-order shear deformation theory. This investigation is performed under axial compression using the Finite Strip Method and experiment. The effects of dimensions, orientation, eccentricity, torsional stiffness, position and geometric configuration of stiffeners on the buckling load coefficient are achieved by employing the principle of minimum potential energy. Six grid-stiffened composite plate specimens with ortho-grid, angle-grid, and orthotropic-grid stiffeners are tested. The results of the presented method show good outcomes with those of experimental tests and the finite element ANSYS code.

Keywords:

• Thick stiffened plates
• finite strip method
• composite plate
• buckling
• finite element method

Data availability statement

Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.