A Study on the Geometric Nonlinear Behaviour of Ship Plate by Energy Method

Plate buckling is very important design criteria when the ship is composed of high tensile steel plates. In general, the plate element contributes to inplane stiffness against the action of inplane load. If the inplane stiffness of the plating decreases due to buckling including the secondary buckling, the flexural rigidity of the cross section of a ship's hull also decreases. In these cases, the precise estimation of plate's behaviour after buckling is necessary, and geometric nonlinear behaviour of isolated plates is required for structural system analysis. In this connection, the author investigated the geometric nonlinear behaviour of simply supported rectangular plates under uniaxial compression in the longitudinal direction in which the principle of minimum potential energy method is employed. Based on the energy method, elastic large deflection analysis of isolated palate is performed and simple expression are derived to discuss the bifurcation paint type buckling and limit point type buckling.