Economical Design of Stiffened Plate using FEM

Abstract

This paper presents the economical design of stiffened plate subjected to transverse load. The model of stiffened plate is developed using ANSYS APDL 14.0 for the finite element analysis and design. At first, a convergence study is carried out to arrest the optimum mesh size for discretizing the plate. The maximum deflection of plate with and without stiffeners subjected to point and uniformly distributed load for both fixed and simply supported conditions is determined. Analysis of stiffened plate with single and multiple stiffeners is carried out to find out the optimum dimensions of stiffener, spacing between the stiffeners and their effects on plate due to orientation of stiffeners. The design data may be useful to the designers of plate structures.

Keywords: Thin plate, stiffener, deflection, FEM, ANSYS APDL