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Abstract
Old steel structures are more vulnerable to buckling, yielding and fracture due crack and corrosion. Predicting residual ultimate strength of plates with crack damage is of crucial importance for health monitoring and condition assessment of aged structures. In this work a series of nonlinear finite-element method is employed for an ultimate strength analysis of steel stiffened plates with a transverse crack. Influential parameters, including plate thickness, type and size of stiffeners, crack length and longitudinal/transverse positions of crack are varied and more than 240 models are studied. It is found that presence of a transverse crack in a thick stiffened plate is more crucial than a thin plate and longitudinal position of centre crack has not a considerable influence on ultimate strength reduction. For thin plate, ultimate strength reduction in edge crack is more than centre crack. Size of stiffeners, thickness of plate and type of stiffeners has no influence on reduction of ultimate strength.