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Steel and Composite Structures
  Volume 42, Number 4, February25 2022 , pages 427-446
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12989/scs.2022.42.4.427
 


Optimum arrangement of stiffener on the buckling behaviour of stiffened composite panels with reinforced elliptical cutouts subjected to non-uniform edge load
Akshay Prakash Kalgutkar, Sauvik Banerjee and T. Rajanna

 
Abstract
    Cutouts in the beams or plates are often unavoidable due to inspection, maintenance, ventilation, structural aesthetics purpose, and sometimes to lighten the structures. Therefore, there will be a substantial reduction in the strength of the structure due to the introduction of the cutouts. However, these cutouts can be reinforced with the different patterns of ribs (stiffener) to enhance the strength of the structure. The present study highlights the influence of the elliptical cutout reinforced with a different pattern of ribs on the stability performance of such stiffened composite panels subjected to non-uniform edge loads by employing the Finite element (FE) technique. In the present formulation, a 9-noded heterosis element is used to model the skin, and a 3-noded isoparametric beam element is used to simulate the rib that is attached around a cutout in different patterns. The displacement compatibility condition is employed between the plate and stiffener, and arbitrary orientations are taken care by introducing respective transformation matrices. The effect of shear deformation and rotary inertia are incorporated in the formulation. A new mesh configuration is developed to house the attached ribs around an elliptical cutout with different patterns. Initially, a study is performed on the panels with different stiffener schemes for various ply orientations and for different stiffener depth to width ratios (ds/bs) to determine an optimal stiffener configuration. Further, various parametric studies are conducted on an obtained optimal stiffened panel to understand the effect of cutout size, cutout orientation, panel aspect ratio, and boundary conditions. Finally, from the analysis, it can be observed that the arrangement of the stiffener attached to a panel has a major impact on the buckling capacity of the stiffened panel. The stiffener
 
Key Words
    9-noded heterosis element; buckling; composite laminates; elliptical cutout; finite element method; nonuniform edge loads; reinforced cuto
 
Address
Akshay Prakash Kalgutkar:Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Sauvik Banerjee:Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

T. Rajanna:BMS College of Engineering,
 

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