A universal similarity method and design procedure for buckling assessment of stiffened plates under compression load on real ships

The geometric and material nonlinearity make it difficult to provide reliable prediction on the buckling behaviors of ship structure theoretically. Experimental tests are thus still indispensable for the evaluation of the structural safety of ships. In experimental studies, the similarity methods are essential to guide the design of scale-down models for the lab testing, yet the existing similarity methods are either difficult to provide precise similarity or focused on idealized structures. The aim of this paper is to put forward a universal similarity method and ensure the scale-down models designed by the corresponding similarity method can better reproduce the whole buckling process of large stiffened plates from real ship structures. The similarity method and corresponding design procedure for T-bar and angle-bar stiffened plates were derived based on buckling process analysis. Results show good agreements between the real ship structures and scale-down models in terms of buckling mode, load–displacement relationship and ultimate loading capacity. This could be regarded as the first step towards filling the gap between precision and practical application in the field of experimental assessment of ship structural safety.