ANALYTICAL STUDY ON BENDING BUCKLING STRENGTH OF CURVED PANEL

Abstract

In fabricating curved girders, automatic welding robots cannot be applied to welding of horizontal stiffeners to the web panel due to the girder curvature and manufacturing costs increase. Elimination or reduction of the number of horizontal stiffeners is desirable. In this study, FE analysis was carried out varying the curvature and the width-thickness ratio of the web panel. To evaluate the bending buckling strength, the relationship between the bending buckling strength and the curvature has been clarified considering the initial deflection and the residual stress. From the results, it was found that the influence of the curvature on the bending buckling strength of the web panels is small if the radii of curvature are between ∞ and 40m.