Cylindrically curved unstiffened and stiffened plates are often used in ship structures. For example, they can be found at deck with a camber, side shell at fore and aft parts and bilge circle part of ship structures. It has been believed that such cylindrically curved plates can be modelled fundamentally by a part of a circular cylinder. From the estimations using cylindrically curved plate models, it is known that, in general, curvature increases the buckling strength compared to a flat plate under axial compression. Existence of the curvature is also expected to increase the ultimate strength as well as buckling strength. In the present paper, series of Finite Element analyses are performed on stiffened curved plates varying several parameters such as curvature, panel slenderness ratio as well as web height and type of stiffener. The results of numerical calculations on stiffened and unstiffened curved plates are examined to clarify the influences of these parameters on characteristics of their buckling/plastic collapse behaviour and strength under axial compression.
Thin-walled cylindrical shell is very widely used as a structural element such as oil and gas storages, offshore structures, cooling towers and ship hulls. It is important to clarify the elastic and elastoplastic stability of cylindrical shells under various loading conditions. Especially, in ship structures, cylindrically curved plates are used, for example, at deck plating with a camber, side shell plating at fore and aft parts and bilge circle part. It has been believed that such curved plates can be modelled fundamentally by a part of the cylinder. At the beginning, a brief review is made on previous research works related to buckling and/or buckling/plastic collapse behaviour and strength of cylindrically curved plates and stiffened plates.
