Compressive Buckling Analysis of Hat-Stiffened Panel

ABSTRACT Buckling analysis was performed on a hat-stiffened panel subjected to uniaxial compression. Both local bucklingand global buckling were analyzed. It was found that the global buckling load was several times higher than thelocal buckling load. The predicted local buckling loads compared favorably with both experimental data and finite-element analysis. INTRODUCTION Various advanced hot-structural panel concepts have been investigated for applications to hypersonic aircraftwing panels (ref. 1). Among those panels investigated, the beaded panels and the tubular panels were found tobe highly efficient (that is, high stiffness to weight density ratio). The buckling behavior of these two types ofhot-structural panels were studied extensively, both theoretically and experimentally (refs. 2 and 3).One of the recently developed wing panels with potential application to hypersonic aircraft is a hat-stiffenedpanel, as shown in figure 1. This panel is equivalent to a corrugated core sandwich panel with one face sheet removed.This report presents a buckling analysis of the hat-stiffened panel under uniaxial compression. The predictedbuckling loads are compared with the experimental data and finite-element solutions.