Dimensional and similitude analysis of stiffened panels under longitudinal compression considering buckling behaviours

Abstract The collapse behaviours of ship structures are usually validated by testing their small scale models. For thin-wall structures, the scale models obtained by complete geometrical similarity might not be economical or practical in test. The present study aims to figure out an approach to determine the dimensions of small scale models, which have similar collapse behaviours and load carrying capacity with full scale prototypes. For this purpose, the partial similarity methods are used to design the dimensions of scale stiffened panels considering the influence of collapse modes, which could be employed for the experiment in laboratory condition. The proposed approaches assume that three principle parameters dominate the buckling behaviours of stiffened panels, including plate, column and torsional slenderness, which are considered as determinate variables in the analyses of partial similarity methods. The stiffened panels under uniaxial longitudinal compression are simulated by finite element method. The dimensional and similitude analyses of stiffened panels with flanged profiles and flat bars are also performed. The ultimate strength and collapse mode are compared between the small and full scale models. From the comparison, the small scale stiffened panels designed by the partial similarity methods could reasonably represent the collapse behaviours of full scale models.