Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Engineering - Department of Civil Engineering

Steel plates are widely used in many structures. Openings may exist for maintenance or inspection purposes in addition to creating paths for different fixtures such as air conditioning, pipes, etc. The structural performance of plates with openings is different from that of solid plates when subjected to axial compressive load. Openings will affect local buckling, lateral torsional buckling and shear of plates. Adding stiffeners around openings is a common engineering practice to strengthen plates. However, different design codes do not provide design formulas for the effect of such openings on the axial buckling strength. In the current research, a parametric study has been performed using general purpose finite element software ANSYS to study the effect of using stiffeners around circular opening in simply supported axially loaded plates on the elastic buckling behavior. Different parameters were considered including aspect ratio of plate, opening diameter, opening position in both horizontal and vertical directions, and stiffener{u2019}s dimensions. The results of the extensive parametric study are used to propose an empirical design formula considering the different parameters

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